Walmart Warns of Slow Sales in 2025 & Amazon Takes Over James Bond

0:00Tuesday on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozma St John host the highly anticipated new competition show. I hired 10 creatives from all walks of life. They will be battling it out to see who can impress the world's biggest brands. This is a huge opportunity. This is the battle for the next big idea. This is not play play. We're spending millions of dollars. I'm so excited to embark on this adventure with all of you. Make the best idea win! On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere Tuesday on NBC. Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Toby Howell. And I'm Kyle Heggie. Today, Walmart, the bellwether of retail, warns there could be tough times ahead.

0:40And how Amazon has finally got James Bond over to their side. It's Friday, February 21st. Let's ride.

0:52So as you can hear, Neil is out for the day and actually will be out for the entire next week as well, as he is finally taking a long deserved break, which means we have Kyle here today. Yes, thank God. Neil deserves a break. He absolutely does. So Kyle, you are from Minnesota, which along with the whole Midwest has been in the midst of a little bit of a cold snap. In fact, it was so cold this week that cloud-detecting satellites pointed at the region, thought that all of Minnesota, the Dakotas, and part of Wisconsin were a cloud. The National Weather Service shared this gif of satellite imagery showing dark and light blue covering the upper Midwest, the hallmarks of clouds as seen by satellites, while actual clouds floated by over Illinois and Iowa.

1:35Kyle, there is cold, and then there is satellites mistaking your state for a cloud cold. What is going on? Well, first, I just want to say I'm honored to be the MBD Minnesota correspondent. First, that is an honor. No, that's just another day in Minnesota. Parents still have shorts on. They'll walk outside. They go, oh, it's a bit chilly. Let's get on our way. And you go on with your day. You go on with your day. Now let's go on with our show. A word from our sponsor, LinkedIn Ads. Kyle, thank you again for filling in today. My pleasure, Toby. It was fun getting back into MBD prep last night. Felt like I was back in school again.

2:09Preparation is a huge part of what makes MBD tick. But now imagine that you are in that chair in front of the bright lights with no idea with what we were talking about today, just fully in the dark. As much as I trust my improv skills, that sounds awful. I would much rather know what the heck is going on. I agree. but so many people run their B2B ad campaigns that way. No prep, firing willy-nilly, hoping they reach the right people. That's where LinkedIn can help. It lets you target your audience by industry, company, and role, so you can feel prepared knowing your ads will reach the right people.

2:40No more sinking feeling knowing you are wasting time and resources. No more pit in your stomach knowing you're not prepared. Just precise targeting and great results. If you're interested in testing out LinkedIn ads, LinkedIn will give you a$100 credit on your next campaign. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash MBD. That's LinkedIn.com slash MBD. Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads. Walmart. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you.

3:15Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Walmart released its fourth quarter earnings yesterday and spooked the markets a little bit after it warned inflation fatigue and general uneasiness among shoppers could slow its roll over the next year. And since it's Walmart and it's huge, its tepid outlook stoked fears of a broader slump in consumer spending that affected the entire market. Q4 earnings actually weren't the issue. Sales were up 4.6 % year over year, topping expectations.

3:52E-commerce sales especially were a bright spot, jumping 20%. And higher-income shoppers kept piling items into its shopping carts. So why was the stock down 6 % yesterday? A cleanup on aisle 2025. It projects 3 % to 4 % full-year sales growth below Wall Street's expectations and well under the 5.1 % growth it logged last year. It called out tariffs, which could weigh on the low prices, as well as lingering inflation as two reasons why sales and profit growth could slow. Kyle, combine Walmart's tepid outlook with the fact that U.S. retail sales fell more than expected in January, and you have a rocky start to the year for consumer spending.

4:31Yeah, Toby, you mentioned this at the beginning of the show. This is like a bellwether for retailers. I mean, Walmart is just so massive that how Walmart goes, kind of the whole industry goes. I thought the tariffs were very interesting. Their CFO, John David Rainey, said, look, we're not immune from tariffs. I think it's about two-thirds of what Walmart sells is grown or assembled in the U.S., but they still have products coming in from Mexico, from Canada. The tariff situation seems pretty unclear, so they didn't actually talk about that in their guidance. But that is kind of the big cloud over all of this is are things going to get even harder if tariffs come to play?

5:06Right. And Walmart is typically pretty insulated from tariffs, not only because a lot of what they source is from the United States, but also they are so big that they have really great leverage when negotiating with partners. And so usually they can skate by without having to raise prices too much. But you're right. There is just this cloud of uncertainty hanging over it right now. That being said, too, Walmart did have a pretty dang good quarter outside of this uncertainty that they're seeing ahead. They have diversified their business a little bit. Their ad business brought in over$4 billion last year.

5:42You don't think of Walmart even having an ad business, but e-commerce is growing as well. Q4 was great, but looking ahead is where it gets a little murky. Yeah, I think this point about the diversification of Walmart's revenue stream is actually really interesting. global membership from Walmart. Their income grew 16 % year over year. That's programs like Walmart Plus, Sam's Club. Their advertising business, as you mentioned, was near about 30%. 24 % increase in Walmart Connect. They have these third-party marketplaces now. They're doing pharmacy. They're doing same-day delivery. So they've really diversified, and they're kind of becoming a little bit like Amazon, and that's never a bad thing.

6:20Right, and which actually we should talk about Amazon a little bit. Amazon did officially leapfrog Walmart in quarterly sales for the first time. Neil and I spoke about this on the show. It wasn't official back then because Walmart hadn't reported, but Walmart reported$180.5 billion in sales during the most recent quarter. Amazon came in at$187 billion. Walmart still technically leads the way in annual sales, but obviously Amazon is gaining ground there. But I do just want to zoom out a little bit because Walmart is an$800 billion business. It's a microcosm of the entire economy. So you saw that filter through the market yesterday.

6:58The Dow was down 1 % yesterday. S &P 500 dipped as well. The NASDAQ dipped as well. So even though Walmart is just one company in the retail sector, it does give you a kind of a lens into what they think consumers will be feeling like over the next year. And they think consumers will be feeling a little bit apprehensive. Yeah. You mentioned the Walmart and Amazon distinction. Walmart, since 2012, has made the most annual revenue of any company in the U.S. I looked at when this first started tracking this in the S &P 500. Do you know in 1955 what the top company was for revenue? I would assume it's some oil company.

7:37It's actually General Motors. And they made$9.8 billion in revenue. We have accelerated. We have accelerated. So let's move on to the big screen. James Bond has dodged over 4 ,000 bullets, gone up against 20-plus supervillains, and even once had to skydive into an airplane. However, he might have pulled off his greatest feat yet, wriggling out of the stalemate between the Broccoli family, who has had creative control of the franchise for decades, and Amazon, who after their purchase of MGM controlled the distribution rights of the Bond franchise. That's right. In a new deal announced yesterday, Amazon and the Broccoli family have formed a new joint venture to house Bond IP with Amazon MGM Studios gaining creative control.

8:19Now, why is this news? Well, the relationship between Amazon and the Broccoli family has been contentious since 2022, with the Broccoli family viewing Bond as a family heirloom to be handled delicately and skeptical that the algorithm-focused Amazon would do Bond justice. dis, Amazon definitely didn't help themselves. They kept referring to Bond as, quote, content, which, according to a friend of Barbara Broccoli, felt like a curse word. So what does the New Deal open up for Amazon? Well, the Bond franchise, it's one of the highest grossing IPs series in history, with over$7.6 billion in box office sales, with the latest Bond film, No Time to Die, raking in$775 million.

9:00Now Bond can be the crown jewel in the fast-growing media empire Amazon is rapidly building. Toby, the real question is, are you throwing your hat into the ring to be the new Bond? Listen, I am wearing a hat. I will take it off right now and put it in the ring. You are right. This was the vision for Amazon when they bought MGM Studios. They shelled out a big chunk of change to, you know, bring that under their content umbrella. And the crown jewel of that is obviously James Bond. But they've been at this impasse with the Broccoli family because it's not just the broccoli family had control over bond films they had ironclad control they decided when they got to make a new bond film who would play james bond whether you get remakes whether you get television spin-offs but it goes beyond that they also had final say over every single line of dialogue that came in the film every casting decision every stunt sequence you mentioned him skydiving in a plane that has to go through broccoli every marketing uh um tie-in every tv ad, every poster, every billboard, that all filtered through the Broccoli family, which is why Amazon was like, all right, we bought James Bond, but we don't have any control over what he does or how we use him.

10:12Now, through this joint venture, they do, which could be a good thing because we'll probably get a new James Bond movie on the horizon, but also could be a bad thing because who knows if Amazon will treat this IP properly. And this is a massive win for Amazon, I think, because they spent about$8.5 billion dollars buying MGM, but then they couldn't unlock the power of James Bond. And there was an article that came on the Wall Street Journal at the end of last year that was about the relationship between Amazon and the Broccoli family. I read that and literally was like, there's no way they're getting this.

10:44Two months later, they have it. But it was very, very contentious. Barbara Broccoli literally said these people are effing idiots in reference to Amazon. And she said, quote, don't have temporary people make permanent decisions. So it seems like their idea was to keep ironclad control. I'm not sure how Amazon pulled it off, but now Amazon's in the driver's seat. Yeah, I think one of the big sticking points was the Broccoli family never wanted to spin it off as a TV series. Remember, Amazon clearly wants to. They have the prime TV service. They want to, you know, make a James Bond TV series to just squeeze more juice out of it.

11:21but the broccoli family is like, no, this should be a cinematic franchise. This should only live in theaters. So you are right. I don't know exactly what agreement they came to. Maybe it was just a lot of pinky promises that we won't like overuse the IP, but here we are. I also, so Jeff Bezos wasted no time in like posting the article saying like, woohoo, it's under our control now. And he actually asked his Instagram following to say like, who should be the next James Bond. It's, you know, it's the most popular question in media to ask. And I was just scrolling through the comments and the number one name that popped up was Henry Cavill, who, you know, has played Superman, played Witcher, which would be great.

11:58But any James Bond ideas come to your mind? Who do you think should play? I mean, Timmy, Timmy Shelley. I don't know if he's got the muscle. I just I think it's funny, like the broccoli family being like, you have to take this serious. Namson's like, yeah, no, we will. And then instantly Jeff Bezos on Instagram, like, who's up? Who wants to play Bond? It's the question everyone wants answered. Let's move on. You know that awkward moment where you call an Uber, but there's four of you, so that means one has to sit shotgun. Well, thanks to a new app that debuted this week called Protector, the person sitting shotgun might actually be holding a gun.

12:34Protector lets you hire on-demand personal armed security guards to give you both a lift and watch your six. According to the app, which is only available in New York and LA right now, your personal security force will include active duty or retired law enforcement officers, while your ride will be up to three Escalades or similarly sized vehicles. You can even customize your posse's outfit sim style on the app with business formal and tactical casual listed as options. The app charges at least$200 an hour for one driver and one guard, and you have to book for at least five hours. That's in addition to an annual$129 membership fee.

13:14What do we think of Protector, though, Kyle, the company that many are calling Uber with guns? I mean, the branding is something else. I will say, personally, I'm a tactical casual type guy. That's how I pull up to the function. Look, I think they're saying their market is for people that need high-end security. The real market is people that want to cosplay as billionaires. I mean, we've seen this go viral on TikTok, actually. It's like a bunch of 20-somethings who just like want to roll up with bodyguards. And it's kind of a fun thing. There was one where the bodyguards were actually going to get them matcha and coming back.

13:48So I think the market, what they say the market is, is not actually the market who's going to take advantage of this. It feels a little gimmicky to me. We'll see if it has staying power, I suppose. Right. One of the reasons that the app's founder said that they brought this service to market, they actually said they rushed it to market after they saw the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. So they were clearly trying to play on some of those safety fears or safety anxieties that people might have when traveling. But if you do look at a lot of their marketing, it feels like cosplaying a little bit because usually personal security is only afforded to the ultra-rich, the billionaires who actually do probably need it.

14:26Now you can get it enhanced safety, as you might want to call it, at a decently affordable price. So yeah, you can take a cynical look at it or you can say maybe this is providing a service to people who want it. Whatever the case is, they have clearly struck a chord. We're talking about it. A lot of people are talking about it. They've done their job on the marketing front. Yeah, the CEO having the app and saving us, that felt in bad taste a little bit to me, like saying this app would have saved this person's life. Yeah, that was a little odd to me. But the CEO of this, Nick Sarath, he has another app called Patrol.

15:03And so there clearly seems to be this market demand for additional security services. And patrol lets neighborhoods basically crowdfund extra security, including like if you raise enough money, you can have drones protecting your neighborhood. So this idea that we need enhanced security seems to be going from individual to even neighborhood level. And they're trying to capitalize on that. Yeah. Hey, I mean, if it makes you feel important to have more security or if it makes you feel more secure to have people around you, you know, armed, then all the power to you, I guess. Up next, we got stock of the week, dog of the week.

15:38Raise the rudders. Raise the sails. Raise the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait, is that an enterprise sails solution? Reach sails professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more. Start converting your B2B audience today. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started today at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA.

16:17Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving. Visit Strayer.edu slash Jack Welch MBA to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Shev and as many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street North in Arlington, Virginia. It's Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week time, where we have one stock who is like Neil sitting on a beautiful, warm, tropical island, and one stock that's stuck in freezing cold Minnesota. Toby, I won the James Bond Skill Challenge backstage, so I will go first. My stock of the week is him's and hers health, which is on an absolute heater lately, starting with their Super Bowl ad, which led to a 650 % surge in website visits, new customer registrations hitting all-time highs and shooting their app up to the number two slot in the health and wellness category on the App Store.

17:11And to follow that up, Hemstock has had a massive gain on the news that the company has now acquired Triby Labs. The deal will allow the telehealth company to offer at-home blood draws and more comprehensive pre-treatment testing to its users. Its chief medical officer, Dr. Carroll, said, quote, At-home lab testing is one of the most exciting steps towards elevating the personal, comprehensive care customers in this country should expect. So what does this mean for the stock? Well, so far, Wall Street loves the stock. Shares have soared 141 % in 2025. Entering trading as of Tuesday's close this week.

17:47And the stock spiked more than 20 % in news after this deal was announced. Toby, the health and wellness space is so hot right now. Yeah, hims and hers is riding high. It used to kind of be a one-trick pony. It had these hair loss treatments, these ED pills, but now it's very much a multi-trick pony. Less than a year ago, it started offering those compounded GLP-1 weight loss drugs. That was a big boon for the company. Now it has blood testing as well. At-home blood testing does seem to be kind of the next evolution or the next popular thing in at-home health right now because it does give you a good insight into a wide variety of health indicators that could help you with preventative measures or just get a snapshot of your health.

18:30So I do think that we have seen Hims and Hers just evolve as a company, and Wall Street is clearly loving it right now. Yeah, personalized medicine, telehealth is all kind of emerging, and some of these companies are going to be big winners in the space. I do think the other bet that Hims and Hers is making right now is, one, it's setting it up itself as against the traditional pharma industry. We saw that as in the Super Bowl ad. It literally was saying it took shots at the traditional pharma industry, saying the industry is priced for profits, not for patients. So it is trying to set itself up as this new age alternative to that traditional monolithic health insurance, health establishment that a lot of people have negative feeling towards.

19:10And then the other thing I think that this blood work acquisition does for them is it gives them a lot of data. so they obviously want to accelerate their development of artificial intelligence just like every single other company in the world out there so they're saying that they're going to use part of the data they glean from this blood work patient identities will be removed to you know build this database of like if i get a result where i shows my ldl cholesterol is this level what does it actually mean what does it mean uh across a broad swath of other you know patient data. So I do think that the end goal here is to get some more fodder to feed an AI algorithm that could help you manage your health, which is another reason why I think we saw that 20 % bump yesterday is like, there's a little bit of AI story mixed in.

19:57You got to have a little bit of AI in the mix. Exactly. No, I think that is what his and hers is thinking. What is our AI in the mix? And I think this is continuing their journey towards building an actual AI that can help manage your health. Palantir is making its dog of the week debut today after weeks of being a candidate for the opposite side of this segment. The AI company, best known for its work with defense agencies, had a no good lousy week, dropping at least 10 % both Wednesday and Thursday before paring back some of those losses. The major drops came after the Pentagon announced it's prepared to cut the U.S.

20:29defense budget by 8 % each year for the next five years. That is not music to the ears of a company that relies on government contracts for over half of its revenue. If that wasn't enough, investors also got a little antsy over a new stock compensation plan that CEO Alex Karp was granted. His new plan allows him to sell nearly 10 million shares of company stock in the next six months, if he wanted to, which with the stock trading at a price to earnings ratio of 600 to one, might be an attractive proposition. Kyle, not a name you'd typically expect to see in the dog of the week column. I know, and Palantir is a really interesting company because it's like half real company, half meme stock.

21:11And they rely so much on retail investors. In fact, NVIDIA, Tesla, and SPY, the SPDR S &P 500 ETF, they're the only stocks that have more net inflows from retail investors than Palantir. So people like on the street really love this company, although it's more of a real company than maybe the AMC meme stock craze. The other thing is every meme stock company has to have an iconic cult-like figure, and Karp is no exception to that. This is someone who loves reveling in the spotlight. He loves retail investors, and he says, I actually revere everyone that reveres me. And so he has this kind of cult-like personality that people really rally around.

21:55I was going to make the same point. It shows the danger of having retail traders as your main investor base. Obviously, they can boost you to these insane highs that we've seen. Palantir, it was the best performing stock in 2024. Until this week, it was the best performing stock in 2025 as well in the S &P 500. But if the narrative starts to swift, those same traders can start to abandon you as well. Let's talk about the Pentagon side of things too. Pentagon's 2025 budget is$850 billion. There are plans to make cuts to that budget. The dogeification of the federal government isn't ignoring the Pentagon and its gigantic budget.

22:33That being said, though, Palantir does still have great connections in the defense industry. It could be one of those line items where when you're looking at that entire budget, you go, maybe do we need to be paying Palantir X amount of money for this service? So who knows if the fears are overblown? Who knows if it will actually be affected by those cuts? But just looking broadly, it's not good to see cuts to the defense industry's budget if you are a Palantir shareholder. It's interesting though. I actually think Palantir is much more well-positioned to withstand those cuts than maybe some of the old legacy companies.

23:07And you mentioned the doge-ification of the government. Proximity to Elon Musk is maybe important. Peter Thiel was a co-founder and is on the board of Palantir who's great friends with Elon Musk. And so it feels like this is actually a company that would benefit from reduction from the Department of Defense because they are a little more forward-leaning. They're a little more focused on efficiency. They're a little more innovative than some of these old players. So this could actually be good news for Palantir going forward. Now let's sprint to the finish with some headlines you may have missed.

23:38Up first, the IRS is getting slimmer today. The agency began laying off roughly 6 ,700 employees, over 6 % of the agency's workforce as of yesterday. If you still don't know where the good bathrooms are in the IRS office, you are probably amongst the layoffs. The cuts primarily affected those who have worked for less than one or two years. Cal, these layoffs come right as tax filing season is picking up in earnest, and the IRS is getting inundated with paperwork and questions from taxpayers. But cuts aren't expected to include workers essential to the filing season. Yeah, I mean, the IRS is in a tough spot also just with general attrition, and 63 % of the current IRS is eligible to retire within six years.

24:22There's some more cuts. Morale is low. People might start retiring. It might not be good news for our refunds getting here on time. I know. So as of February 7th, the IRS had received in process about 23 and a half million individual returns. That was down about 8 percent from the same time last tax season, which might show that there is some buildup happening over at the IRS with some of these cuts, some of these uncertainty. It might be a headache season that is brewing upon us right now, especially with these cuts coming down the line. Yeah, the termination memo read, quote, your continued employment at the agency is not in the public interest, end quote, which that's a savage way to go out.

25:02Moving on to the great U.S.-Canada War of 2025, a.k.a. the Four Nations Hockey Tournament. Now, if you haven't heard of the Four Nations Hockey Tournament, an NHL best-on-best tournament featuring players from Sweden, Finland, Canada, and the U.S., you probably saw some of the clips on social media. National anthems getting booed, fights breaking out on the ice before fans were even in their seats, and tweets about Canada becoming the 51st state or the U.S. becoming the 11th province. Well, Canada was declared victorious last night after a 3-2 victory against the U.S., but the bigger story was just how electric this tournament was and the demand for tickets, whose prices rivaled those of the Super Bowl.