Amazon stock dropped a much as 1.2% in the pre-market (down 0.7% last), after an early start of the Trump tweets on Wednesday where with his first tweet he attacked the giant online retailer, saying "Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost! "
Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
Trump's comment hardly conveys new information, and underscores what Dick's CEO Ed Stack said yesterday during his striking conference call in which he said the retail industry is in "panic mode", liquidating inventory to keep market share, and hit by a "perfect storm" in which Amazon is a key culprit: "Dick's is another example of Amazon becoming the new middleman... Here we go down the gross margin rabbit hole just in time for the holidays."
The question, of course, is whether the tweet is indicative of another policy shift by the Trump administration, one in which the president will focus on the giant online retailer as a potential monopoly and bring up anti-trust considerations, potentially sparking fears of a government mandated break up. Of course, Trump's tweet may have simply been prompted by something he read in the Bezos-owned WaPo this morning, resulting in the angry tweet.
Indicatively, last week Defense Secretary James Mattis visited Amazon's HQ in Seattle, where CEO Jeff Bezos posted a photo of him showing Mattis around the headquarters.
