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    Robinhood to let users hold their own crypto and NFTs as it reaches for growth beyond stock trading

    Robinhood will launch a stand-alone app that lets users custody their own cryptocurrencies and NFTs, putting it squarely in competition with Coinbase. 
    The self-custody wallets also will accelerate the company’s international launch. 
     It’s the brokerage firm’s latest move into digital assets as it searches for growth beyond stock trading, with company shares down 88% from their all-time high.

    Robinhood is handing over the keys to some of its customers’ crypto.
    The trading and investing company announced Tuesday it will let users hold and custody their own cryptocurrencies and NFTs in a separate, stand-alone app. It’s the latest move in the digital asset space for Robinhood as it reaches for growth beyond stock trading. The company shares are off more than 70% since its IPO.

    The new app will put Robinhood squarely in competition with Coinbase and start-ups like MetaMask. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong called his company’s product the most downloaded, mobile self-custody wallet in the U.S. in a tweet Monday.

    Vlad Tenev, CEO and co-founder Robinhood Markets, Inc., is displayed on a screen during his company’s IPO at the Nasdaq Market site in Times Square in New York City, U.S., July 29, 2021.
    Brendan McDermid | Reuters

    The app will let users store non-fungible tokens, and connect to NFT marketplaces and “decentralized” stock exchanges. It will also let users earn yield through other platforms and access a “variety” of crypto assets on other exchanges, Robinhood said.
    Who holds, or “custodies,” someone’s cryptocurrency has become a contentious question in the industry, fueling the viral phrase “not your keys, not your coins.” Some fear storing assets on an exchange makes them more vulnerable to hacks, or censorship. 
    Robinhood, which topped last year’s CNBC Disruptor 50 list, made its name by offering commission-free stock trading. Its value and user base soared during the pandemic as it ushered in a new generation of traders. The company also became the center of the meme-stock saga after restricting trading in GameStop, the highly shorted name Reddit traders bought in defiance of Wall Street short sellers.
    The trading business has slowed significantly over the past year. For the three months ended March 31, Robinhood’s revenue fell 43% from a year ago. Since its public debut in August, shares have plummeted more than 70% and are more than 88% off of the all-time high. 

    In an effort to spur revenue and user growth, Robinhood has been adding more cryptocurrency products and features, and in late March it added extended stock trading hours. It launched an earlier version crypto of wallets to customers in April, which will still be available within the core Robinhood app.
    “We believe that crypto is more than just an asset class,” Vlad Tenev, Robinhood’s co-founder and CEO said in a press release. “By offering the same low cost and great design that people have come to expect from Robinhood, our web3 wallet will make it easier for everyone to hold their own keys and experience all the opportunities that the open financial system has to offer.”
    Robinhood said the new wallet will roll out with a waitlist first and will be available internationally.
    The new app notably won’t charge network fees, despite Ethereum and bitcoin fees running at $70 in some cases. A Robinhood spokesperson said the crypto product will rely on third-party liquidity providers “competing” for customers’ transactions behind the scenes, in order to offset those network fees.
    Robinhood makes most of its revenue off of transaction fees in its core trading business, through a brokerage-industry practice called payment for order flow.
    — CNBC’s Jesse Pound contributed reporting.

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    Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Walmart, Citigroup, Paramount and more

    Exterior view of a Walmart store on August 23, 2020 in North Bergen, New Jersey
    VIEW press | Corbis News | Getty Images

    Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.
    Walmart — Shares dropped over 11% after the big-box retailer reported quarterly earnings that significantly missed Wall Street’s expectations. Walmart posted adjusted first-quarter earnings of $1.30 per share on revenue of $141.57 billion. Analysts had expected a profit of $1.48 per share on revenue of $138.94 billion, according to Refinitiv consensus estimates. Walmart cited cost pressures from rising fuel prices, higher inventory levels and overstaffing.

    Citigroup — The bank stock rallied 7.7% the day after a regulatory filing revealed that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway added more than 55 million shares to build a stake worth $2.95 billion in the first quarter. Shares of Citi have been underperforming the financial sector over the past 12 months and are still down 15% this year.
    Paramount Global – Paramount shares surged more than 15% after Berkshire Hathaway revealed a stake worth $2.6 billion in the media company. At the end of the quarter, the media company was Berkshire’s 18th-largest holding.
    United Airlines – Shares of the air carrier jumped more than 7% after the Federal Aviation Administration cleared 52 Boeing 777 planes to fly again, after they were grounded for engine failure. The planes represent 10% of United’s capacity. United has said it plans to bring the planes back gradually starting later this month.
    Take-Two Interactive Software — Shares surged 11% despite light guidance and a miss on a bookings metric from the video game company. Analysts are expecting a better outlook after the company closes a pending acquisition of Zynga.
    JD.com – Shares of the Chinese e-commerce giant gained more than 4% after the company beat revenue estimates for its most recent quarter, despite seeing a slowdown in growth as Covid-19 lockdowns weighed on consumer spending. Revenue came in at 239.7 billion Chinese yuan, an 18% increase from the previous year, compared with expectations of 236.6 billion yuan, according to Refinitiv.

    Tencent Music Entertainment – U.S. traded shares of the Chinese online entertainment platform slid more than 1%. Tencent Music posted quarterly revenue of 6.64 billion yuan, a 15% decline from the prior year.
    AMD – Shares of the semiconductor stock jumped 8.7% after Piper Sandler upgraded Advanced Micro Devices to overweight from neutral and said shares could rally nearly 50% after dipping this year.
    Workday — Shares dipped 1.5% after UBS downgraded the HR software stock to a neutral rating from buy. The firm said Workday could be hit hard during an economic downturn.
    Maxar Technologies — The space stock retreated nearly 2% after Bank of America downgraded Maxar to an underperform rating from neutral. The bank said it expects lower revenue and margins at the satellite imaging company moving forward.
    Molson Coors — The beverage stock dipped more than 1% following a downgrade from Bernstein. The investment firm said that the recovery trade for Molson Coors has largely run its course and moved its rating to market perform from outperform.
    — CNBC’s Yun Li, Jesse Pound, Sarah Min, Samantha Subin and Tanaya Macheel contributed reporting.

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    Garage-door maker employees get cash reward in takeover as private equity tests ownership model

    In the otherwise-sleepy town of Arthur, Illinois, this week brought a life-changing surprise for hundreds of workers at locally based garage-door maker, C.H.I. Overhead Doors. 
     C.H.I.’s private equity owner, KKR, is selling the company to steel manufacturer Nucor in a $3 billion deal. The sale marks one of KKR’s largest returns in recent history, generating a massive windfall for both the firm and — uniquely — C.H.I.’s employees, from truck drivers to factory workers. 

    On average, hourly workers at C.H.I. will receive $175,000 in a payout, with the most-tenured earning more than $750,000 as a result of the sale.

    Source: CNBC

    Rhonda Jamison, an office manager at C.H.I., has been with the company for 17 years and will be taking home 5.5 times her annual salary. 
    “Words cannot explain how my mind was going in a hundred directions,” she said. “There is no way that I would have ever expected this much money.” 
    The idea of giving rank-and-file workers equity grants in a sale is the brainchild of Pete Stavros, KKR’s co-head of U.S. Private Equity. Stavros said he became interested in employee ownership at a young age due to his father’s work experience.  
    “My dad was a construction worker for 45 years,” Stavros said. “He actually loved his job, except for, really, two things: one, he couldn’t create wealth, on an hourly wage. And then second, the hourly wage itself really led to a misalignment of incentives with his employer, because the employer wants fewer hours and no overtime, and the workers want just the opposite.” 

    Employee ownership model

    Once he hit a leadership position at KKR, Stavros began experimenting with employee ownership models in the investments he oversaw. 
    “We had good success. So, it delivered great results for companies, great outcomes for workers, he said. “This isn’t charity, it’s not a gift. They drove an unbelievable amount of productivity in the business.” 
    Now, the firm uses an employee ownership model in all of its U.S. buyouts and it’s hoping to convince its peers to do the same. 
    Other large private equity firms, including Apollo Global, Ares Management, Silver Lake, and TPG, have partnered with Stavros’ nonprofit called Ownership Works. Each firm has committed to implementing shared ownership models within at least three of their portfolio companies by the end of 2023. 

    Source: CNBC

    Even Nucor will include their own profit-sharing model for C.H.I., and despite all the changes, C.H.I. employees say they have no plans to leave the company. 
    “We’ve got more accountability for ourselves and to our teammates,” said Kenroy Morrison who is a general manager for C.H.I. in New Jersey. “It’s one of those things where I don’t see myself going anywhere. I’m here for the long haul.” 
    Morrison said he plans to put his bonus toward a college fund for his two-year-old son. 
    As for Jamison, who spends her days answering phones and ordering supplies, she also has big plans for her newfound money. 
    “Well, we’re going to Disney,” she said. “I’m gonna’ pay off my house, I’m gonna’ pay off my cars, and we’re gonna’ give a little bit to the church and help my kids a little bit.”

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    A baby-formula shortage feeds criticism of corporate heft and price gouging

    Throughout the pandemic shoppers have learned again and again about the fragility of supply chains. In America the latest product missing from supermarket shelves is infant formula. Whereas previous shortages, affecting everything from cars to couches, presented an inconvenience to consumers, a lack of nourishment for babies creates serious health risks. So the Biden administration has swung into action. On May 16th the Food and Drug Administration (fda) announced that America would loosen restrictions on imports of formula from other countries and take steps to increase domestic production.There are several overlapping explanations for the shortage. The biggest single problem has been a halt to production at a big manufacturing facility in Michigan since February, when officials began investigating bacterial infections in four babies possibly caused by its milk-based powder. Even without that, parents were struggling to buy formula. A lack of packaging materials, delays in the import of ingredients and staffing vacancies have also contributed to the headache. As much as 43% of formula products were out of stock across America in early May, according to Datasembly, a retail-data firm.Some politicians and analysts have also pointed to two more fundamental problems in the American economy supposedly exposed by the shortages: corporate concentration and price gouging. The former is a valid concern; the latter is a misleading distraction.Until shops started running out of milk-based powder for babies, most Americans probably never gave much thought to the industrial structure of the infant-formula market. Now, it is common knowledge: just four companies (Abbott, Gerber, Perrigo and Reckitt Benckiser) make nearly all of America’s baby formula. The production stoppage occurred at a factory owned by Abbott, which alone controls around 40% of the market. It is a graphic illustration of how a decrease in competition, observable in roughly three-quarters of American industries over the past three decades, can serve the economy poorly. Concentration in the formula market has been exacerbated by close regulation. About 98% of formula consumed in America is made domestically because of the fda’s stringent approval process for foreign factories. And more than half is purchased through a nutrition programme for low-income families, which in turn sources from a single supplier in each state. In 2007 when California switched its contract from Abbott to Mead Johnson (now owned by Reckitt), Abbott’s market share there fell from 90% to 5%, while Mead’s rose from 5% to 95%. On May 13th a group of Democratic Senators including Cory Booker called for an antitrust review of the formula industry. If that were to happen, it would not solve the shortages at hand, but it could put the market on sounder footing in the future.More dubious are claims about the severity of price gouging. In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission on May 12th, President Joe Biden asked it to investigate whether “unscrupulous profiteers” were scooping up infant formula in shops and reselling it for hugely marked-up prices online. There have indeed been instances of such anti-social behaviour.But for some in the Democratic Party, these allegations about pricing now fit into a broader narrative about how corporate greed lies at the root of America’s high inflation. Elizabeth Warren, a progressive senator from Massachusetts, and several colleagues introduced a bill on May 12th that would “prohibit the practice of price gouging during all abnormal market disruptions”. They cited a study from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-wing think-tank, which argued that fatter profit margins have driven more than half of price increases since 2020. Mr Biden has also cottoned on to greed as a politically clever explanation for high prices. On May 13th he tweeted that getting the wealthiest corporations to pay “their fair share” would be a way to bring down inflation.In theory the fiscal drag that would come from higher taxes without any offsetting increase in government spending could reduce inflation (as well, unfortunately, as growth more generally). But if corporate greed explains high inflation, why did so many prices only start to soar well after the pandemic began? It is not as if companies just discovered a love of profits. Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of Amazon, was right to criticise Mr Biden’s tweet as “misdirection”, accusing him of trying to muddy the water in the debate over prices. Indeed, something far more basic explains the run-up in inflation: a surge in stimulus-fuelled demand, compounded by the many disruptions to supply. For individual products the signal sent by higher prices is the most effective way to bring supply and demand back into balance. In the case of baby formula, it provides an incentive for domestic companies to make more in America and for foreign producers to run the gauntlet of approvals to bring their powder into the country. Rather like infant formula itself, higher prices can play a part in healthy development. ■ More

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    Flight attendants’ union backs Spirit-Frontier merger, clearing labor hurdle

    The union that represents flight attendants at Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines on Tuesday backed the carriers’ planned merger.
    The announcement clears a labor hurdle among the biggest worker groups at the airlines.

    A Frontier Airlines airplane taxis past a Spirit Airlines aircraft at Indianapolis International Airport in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Monday, Feb. 7, 2022.
    Luke Sharrett | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    The union that represents flight attendants at Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines on Tuesday backed the carriers’ planned merger, clearing a labor hurdle among the biggest worker groups at the airlines.
    The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said it reached a so-called merger transition agreement with Frontier’s parent that prohibits flight attendant furloughs during the merger, in addition to guaranteeing other protections.

    “We support the necessary regulatory approvals that will improve competition, increase consumer options and experience, and maintain and grow good union jobs,” Sara Nelson, AFA’s president said in a union announcement.
    The agreement comes a day after JetBlue Airways launched a hostile takeover bid for Spirit. The discount airline rejected JetBlue’s $33 per share, all-cash bid earlier this month. JetBlue on Monday made a tender offer of $30 a share and urged Spirit shareholders to vote against the Frontier-Spirit tie-up at a June 10 meeting.
    JetBlue’s flight attendants are represented by the Transport Workers Union. Its president, John Samuelsen, told CNBC last month that TWU would seek to represent a combined JetBlue-Spirit flight attendant group if that deal occurred.
    Either airline combination would be subject to Justice Department approval.

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    Ford-backed robotaxi start-up Argo AI is ditching its human safety drivers in Miami and Austin

    Robotaxi start-up Argo AI said Tuesday it has begun operating its autonomous test vehicles without human safety drivers in Miami and Austin, Texas.
    For now, the driverless vehicles will shuttle Argo AI employees, not paying passengers.

    Argo AI begins driverless operations in Miami and Austin.
    Courtesy: Argo AI

    Robotaxi start-up Argo AI said Tuesday it has begun operating its autonomous test vehicles without human safety drivers in two U.S. cities — Miami and Austin, Texas — a major milestone for the Ford- and Volkswagen-backed company.
    For now, those driverless vehicles won’t be carrying paying customers. But they will be operating in daylight, during business hours, in dense urban neighborhoods, shuttling Argo AI employees who can summon the vehicles via a test app.

    CEO Bryan Salesky said that the company has been working to develop self-driving vehicles that can operate safely in cities since its founding in 2016.
    “From day one, we set out to tackle the hardest miles to drive — in multiple cities — because that’s where the density of customer demand is, and where our autonomy platform is developing the intelligence required to scale it into a sustainable business,” Salesky said.
    Argo has been testing its self-driving technology on streets in eight cities in the U.S. and Europe, using heavily modified Ford and Volkswagen vehicles with, until now, human safety drivers on board.
    Most of Argo’s robotaxis still carry only Argo AI employees. But since December, some of the company’s vehicles have been available to passengers in Miami Beach, Florida, via Lyft’s ride-sharing network.
    Lyft owns about a 2.5% stake in Argo AI. The vehicles available via Lyft will continue to have human safety drivers for the time being, the company said.

    Argo AI is one of several companies working to deploy robotaxis at scale in cities in the U.S. and elsewhere – none have yet reached the point of carrying paying passengers around the clock, in large volume, in busy urban neighborhoods.
    General Motors-backed Cruise, a key Argo AI rival, has begun offering driverless taxi services to the public in San Francisco, but the service is currently limited to late-night hours and the company isn’t yet charging for the rides. Waymo, the Alphabet subsidiary that grew out of the pioneering Google Self-Driving Car project, is operating driverless taxis with passengers in and around Phoenix.  

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    U.S. traffic deaths reached a 16-year high in 2021, according to government estimates

    NHTSA, a federal vehicle safety watchdog, estimates 42,915 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes last year, a 10.5% increase from 2020.
    The deaths include pedestrians, cyclists and others who may have died during a crash.

    Investigators look over the scene of a crash between an SUV and a semi-truck full of gravel near Holtville, California on March 2, 2021.
    Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images

    More people died on U.S. roadways last year than any year since 2005, according to new data released Tuesday by federal vehicle safety officials.
    The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a division of the Department of Transportation, estimates 42,915 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2021, a 10.5% increase from the 38,824 fatalities in 2020. The deaths include pedestrians, cyclists and others who may have died during a crash.

    Fatalities from multivehicle crashes and those on urban roadways both rose 16%, according to the agency, the largest year-over-year increases for incident-specific data. Other notable increases included: fatalities of those 65 years or older, up 14%; pedestrian deaths, up 13%; and fatalities in crashes involving at least one large truck, up 13%.
    In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called the situation “a crisis on America’s roadways that we must address together.”
    Buttigieg said the Biden administration is taking “critical steps to help reverse this devastating trend,” citing the the agency’s previously announced National Roadway Safety Strategy and Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
    The NHTSA estimates traffic deaths rose in 2021 in 44 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
    The higher number of fatalities corresponded with an increase in miles driven on U.S. roadways compared with 2020. Preliminary data reported by the Federal Highway Administration shows that vehicle miles traveled in 2021 increased by about 325 billion miles, or about 11.2%, compared with 2020.
    Despite the additional miles traveled, the fatality rate based on miles driven remained about the same from 2020. Estimates put the fatality rate for 2021 at 1.33 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, compared with 1.34 fatalities in 2020.

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    Walmart's lousy quarter has us looking to exit our position in the retailer

    Investing Club holding Walmart (WMT) reported terrible fiscal first-quarter 2023 results and disappointing full-year guidance Tuesday before the opening bell. The Dow stock more than 10% after the release Tuesday. Revenue rose 2.4% year over year to $141.6 billion, outpacing the $138.96 billion consensus estimate. But adjusted earnings of $1.30 per share missed the $1.46 per share expected by the Street. Bottom line Despite the strong top-line performance, a number of issues weighed on profitability. The list includes a combination of wage and fuel cost inflation that was compounded by an increase in container and storage costs. Sub-optimal execution on behalf of management was also to blame. They partially attributed the lackluster performance to how fast things moved in the back half of the quarter. You’ll recall that Russia invaded Ukraine a week after the company’s prior earnings release. Jim Cramer on Tuesday said : “The execution here is so poor, it’s embarrassing.” It remains to be seen if management can ultimately bring down some of the costs, pass some others through over time, and ultimately realize longer-term profit growth targets. On the earnings call management said, “We’re committed to our 4% top-line growth and greater than 4% profit growth algorithm. Our strategy and mid- to long-term financial plans support that despite the turbulence we’re managing through today.” That may be the case longer term, and management did take some time to discuss the benefits of their so-called flywheel of “mutually reinforcing businesses.” This quarter makes Walmart a show-me story as management must prove their ability to address input cost inflation and protect profit margins better than they did in the first quarter. However, we aren’t very interested in waiting around for management to show us that they can turn things around. So we’re downgrading the stock a 3 rating. That’s reflective of our desire to sell the position on any rally in shares. We see better opportunities in this beaten down market in companies that actually reported fantastic earnings results. Companywide results In addition to the headline numbers, Walmart reported adjusted operating income on constant currency (CC) basis of $5.3 billion in the quarter, below the $6 billion expected. (Constant currencies help strip out fluctuations in foreign currency to provide a clearer financial picture.) Walmart saw a quarterly operating cash outflow of $3.8 billion, far below estimates for a $10.48 billion inflow, and a free cash outflow of $7.3 billion, which missed the $8.78 billion inflow expected. Capital expenditures of $3.5 billion were a tad below expectations of $3.8 billion. As for shareholder returns, Walmart paid out $1.5 billion in dividends during the quarter and bought back $2.4 billion worth of stock. Guidance While the quarterly earnings miss was disappointing, it was the forward guidance that’s really weighing on shares Tuesday. Management reduced their full-year profit forecast despite increasing sales expectations. Fiscal 2023 sales are now expected to increase about 4% in constant currency, up from the “about 3%” growth guided to last quarter. Comparable sales guidance of slightly above 3.5% excluding fuel for Walmart U.S. also represents an increase from the “slightly above 3.5%” excluding fuel previously forecast. Unfortunately, that’s where the increases ended. Management now expects full-year consolidated operating income to decrease by about 1% CC, down from a 3% increase previously expected. As a result, earnings are now expected to decline by about 1% for the full year, a negative revision versus the previous guide to a mid-single-digit percentage increase. The excepted full-year effective tax was unchanged at 25% to 26% as was capital expenditures guidance for the upper-end of 2.5% to 3% growth. with a focus on supply chain, automation, customer-facing initiatives and technology. As for the second quarter of 2023, management expects sales to increase over 5%, better than expectations for 3.8% year over year advance. Driving the expected improvement, a 4% to 5% comp sales increase excluding fuel at Walmart U.S., better than the 3.6% increase expected by the Street. Unfortunately, as was the case with full-year guidance, second-quarter consolidated operating income and earnings-per-share guidance were both revised lower. Management now expects both to be flat to slightly up, down from the low- to mid single-digit percentage increase previously expected on both line items. Segment results Walmart U.S. revenue rose 4% year over year of $96.9 billion in fiscal first-quarter of 2023, beating expectations of $95.04 billion. As a result of gross margin and expense pressures — despite a slight offset from “solid growth in membership and other income” — operating income fell 18.2% to $4.5 billion, missing expectations of $4.78 billion. Comp sales excluding fuel for the quarter increased 3% year over year, with comp transactions coming in flat year over year, and the comp average ticket growing 3% year over year. Contributing to that comp growth was a low double-digit comp sales increase in grocery and high single-digit increase in health and wellness that was partially offset by a low double-digit decrease in general merchandise. Additionally, while e-commerce sales were up 1% year over year, they were up a solid 38% on a two-year stack basis. Taking a look at profitability dynamics, which is the focus given the bottom line miss, gross margin took a hit of 38 basis points (1 basis point equates to 0.01 percentage points), with three-quarters of of that attributable to “higher-than-expected supply chain costs, including fuel and eCommerce fulfillment,” according to the company. A mix shift toward grocery also weighed on profitability due partly to lapping last year’s stimulus payments, which supported higher-margin general merchandise sales in the year ago period. The operating expense rate was up 95 basis points, primarily as a result of wage inflation as Walmart experienced some overstaffing due to a need to higher additional employees to fill-in for ones out with Covid and then seeing those that were out, return alongside their temporary replacements. That said, on the call, management said, “[The] issue was resolved during the quarter, primarily through attrition.” Walmart International revenue of $23.8 billion for the quarter — down 13% or down 11.6% CC — missed expectations of $25.32 billion. Divestitures in the U.K., Japan and Argentina resulted in a $5 billion annual reduction. Excluding this impact, sales were up 6.3% or 8% CC. Additionally, gross margin and expense pressure compounded the top-line miss, resulting in a 35.3% decline in operating income to $800 million, missing expectations of $950 million. Walmex, which includes results from Mexico and Central America, saw sales for the quarter increase 10.4% year over year while sales in China advanced 7.2% and sales in Canada were up 6.9% versus the year ago period. On the call, management noted that their “biggest international pressure point is related to Covid lockdowns in China, which created operational and financial pressure.” Gross margin contracted 108 basis points with a third of that attributable to the divestitures noted above and the remainder “due to markdowns from slower sales growth, as well as ongoing growth in Sam’s Club and eCommerce sales in China,” the company said. Operating expense rate was up 12 basis points, as a result of the deleveraging. Sam’s Club revenue of $19.6 billion for the quarter beat expectations of $17.73 billion with comp sales increasing 17% year over year. Strength was seen in most categories, led by food and partially offset by weak tobacco sales. E-commerce sales in the quarter were up 22% year over year, driven by both direct-to-home and curbside. Membership income was up 10.5% year over year, with member count reaching a new record and Walmart+ penetration increasing by about 290 basis points to another all-time high. In the membership and other income line item, $1.3 billion beat expectations of $1.22 billion. The company’s global advertising, which is recorded either in net sales or as a reduction to cost of sales, depending on the nature of the advertising arrangement, was called out as being up more than 30%. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long WMT. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

    Vehicles in a parking lot at a Walmart store in Torrance, California, US, on Sunday, May 15, 2022.
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