Amazon Overtakes Walmart as the Biggest U.S. Company by Revenue

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0:33Alex Ossola:Walmart loses its crown as the biggest U.S. company by revenue. Plus, U.S. imports hit a record last year, despite President Trump's tariffs. And who's got beef? Higher prices for burgers and steaks may be here to stay.

0:47Sarah Nassauer:Ranchers are just, they're really enjoying these good times. They've historically always struggled to make profits. And now they're really making money, and a lot of them have decided that they're going to hold on to it. And there's not a lot of signs of significant herd rebuilding. So that creates an environment where beef is just the premier luxury protein.

1:04Alex Ossola:It's Thursday, February 19th. I'm Alex Oselev for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

1:18Alex Ossola:A new report from the Commerce Department out today shows that the nation's trade deficit, the gap between imports and exports, was just over$900 billion last year. That's only slightly smaller than in 2024, despite big tariffs from the Trump administration that aimed at closing trade gaps. U.S. imports last year rose 5 percent and hit a record, meaning that the country remains a heavy net importer. We're exclusively reporting that President Trump is weighing an initial limited strike on Iran to force it to meet his demands for a nuclear deal. It would be the first step designed to pressure Tehran into an agreement.

1:53Alex Ossola:The opening attack would target a few military or government sites. It could come within days if it's authorized. If Iran refuses to end its nuclear enrichment after that strike, the U.S. would respond with a broad campaign against the regime, potentially aimed at toppling the government. Officials said Trump hasn't decided yet to order any attack, and it couldn't be determined how seriously Trump is considering this limited strike option. Officials said that discussions lately have focused more on larger-scale campaigns. Trump signaled today that the U.S. would decide its next moves within 10 days.

2:24Alex Ossola:At a board of peace gathering about Gaza, Trump said that, quote, bad things will happen if Iran doesn't make a deal.

2:31Patrick Thomas:So now we may have to take it a step further or we may not. Maybe we're going to make a deal. You're going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days.

2:39Alex Ossola:Iranian officials have threatened to respond with maximum force to American strikes.

2:48Alex Ossola:Walmart reported strong sales growth in its latest quarter, with U.S. comparable sales, a key retail metric, rising 4.6%. It continued to attract shoppers of all income levels to its groceries and online deliveries. The company's new CEO, John Ferner, said on Walmart's earnings call this morning that investments in the online business were helping fuel growth.

3:08Patrick Thomas:The investments we've made in technology and supply chain help us deliver items even faster. They're paying off. Here in the U.S., customers using fast delivery, and that's delivery in under three hours, grew more than 60 % for the year.

3:21Alex Ossola:But the end of the fiscal year also saw Walmart losing its crown as the biggest U.S. company by annual revenue. It's been overtaken by a big rival in e-commerce, Amazon. Sarah Nassauer, who covers Walmart for the journal, says it's a milestone.

3:35Patrick Thomas:For the first time in over a decade, Amazon is bigger than Walmart by annual revenue. And that is symbolic. You know, it's symbolic internally inside Walmart, right, and how they view themselves. It's also symbolic, you know, externally. and it just speaks to how quickly Amazon has been able to grow. They're a younger company than Walmart. There is a shift happening, but both Amazon and Walmart are growing fast. So you're seeing these two massive behemoths grow really fast.

4:11Alex Ossola:If you eat beef, you may have noticed that its price has gone way up. The Labor Department said last week that ground beef prices in January rose 17 percent from a year earlier. That's a much bigger increase than groceries overall. Those were up 2.1 percent. And it's looking like these high prices may be here to stay. Patrick Thomas, who covers the food supply chain for the Journal, is here to discuss. OK, Patrick, what is pushing these prices so high?

4:37Sarah Nassauer:Several years ago, cattle ranchers across the United States started shrinking their herds. This was due to some pretty poor financial conditions following the COVID-19 pandemic. And then in 22, we had a massive drought that made it really expensive to feed livestock. So it made more financial sense for ranchers to send their animals to market, sent more to slaughter, and essentially just shrunk their herds. And now we're in a situation where we just don't have the supply to meet demand, and that's pushed prices up to these record levels over the last year.

5:09Alex Ossola:Does it look like things might stay this way, or are ranchers looking like they're going to expand their herds?

5:16Sarah Nassauer:Ranchers are just, they're really enjoying these good times. They've historically always struggled to make profits, and now they're really making money, and a lot of them have decided that they're going to hold on to it. And there's not a lot of signs of significant herd rebuilding. There are more farmers over 75 than there are under 35. So some of these guys are just choosing to retire. They're not going to expand. So that creates an environment where beef is just the premier luxury protein, as some people are saying.

5:42Alex Ossola:What about efforts to lower prices? Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order allowing more beef imports. How much could that help and has it so far?

5:52Sarah Nassauer:What that does is they've really increased the imports of like lean ground beef, which allows for some more ground beef production. It's not enough to really move the needle broadly. And remember, some of the efforts of trying to incentivize herd rebuilding, it still takes two years due to the biological clock of the animals. So once we do have rebuilding, we're still looking at high beef prices for two years at least.

6:16Alex Ossola:You said it was a luxury product at a time when people are feeling like their purse strings are feeling pretty tight. I mean, me personally, I really avoid buying beef as much as possible at the grocery store. How are people responding to this?

6:29Sarah Nassauer:By and large, demand has not fallen off. People love protein. They're really obsessed with high-quality steaks. You could even say that this speaks to the K-shaped economy of, like, people doing well right now are still buying the high-quality stuff, and people are still buying the ground beef that's traditionally cheaper. So maybe it's a strange reflection on the American economy right now.

6:50Alex Ossola:K-shaped beef consumption.

6:52Sarah Nassauer:Exactly.

6:53Alex Ossola:That was WSJ reporter Patrick Thomas. Thanks so much, Patrick.

6:56Sarah Nassauer:Thanks so much for having me.

6:58Alex Ossola:Coming up, what's got Uber stock in a slump and how jet engines are being used to power AI data centers. That's after the break.

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7:45Alex Ossola:Major U.S. indexes fell today, with the Dow leading the losses and closing down half a percent. Brent oil futures rose 1.9 percent, driven by the U.S. military buildup in the Middle East ahead of a possible strike on Iran.

8:02Alex Ossola:Many investors see the robo-taxi market as a two-horse race between Tesla and Waymo. And that's been weighing on Uber. Its stock has lost nearly a quarter of its value over the past six months. Heard on the street columnist Dan Gallagher says investors are concerned that the ride-hailing and delivery giant is falling behind.

8:20Patrick Thomas:The worry with Uber is that, of course, they run this massive network of human drivers. If robo-taxis become this wave of the future, that they're going to be displaced because maybe way more people would prefer robo-taxis over human drivers. So right now, there's two cities in which Waymo cars are operating essentially through the Uber app, and that's Austin and Atlanta. And so when Uber got those deals, the investors thought, oh, maybe there is a place for Uber in this autonomous car world. But then Waymo has announced several cities since that it plans to expand in that don't include Uber. They're also going into another city doing a partnership with Lyft.

8:56Patrick Thomas:And some of the cities, they offer their cars on their own app. I don't know if it's super clear yet what the ultimate future is going to be. The cars are really expensive. They need to get a return on investment. So there's a good case to be made that Uber can boost that utilization because there's just more people using that platform to get rides.

9:13Alex Ossola:Dan says Uber isn't exactly sitting still on autonomous vehicles.

9:17Patrick Thomas:They're making a lot of investments. They're trying a lot of things. It's hard to dismiss a company that has such a massive platform of people already using it for rides because the new players have to build a similar platform and that takes a long time.

9:34Alex Ossola:If there's one thing we know about artificial intelligence, it's that it takes a lot of energy. The need is so great that even jet engines are being brought on as a power source. Heard on the Street columnist Jinju Lee recently spoke to host Patrick Coffey of our Tech News Briefing podcast about how it works.

9:50Patrick Thomas:How exactly do jet engines help power these AI data centers? We're seeing that jet engines can be converted into natural gas-fired power turbines. And in fact, a lot of major power equipment manufacturers make what are called aeroderivative turbines, which are modeled after these very jet engines. What we're seeing now, though, are companies converting jet engines into aeroderivative turbines because the demand is that high. Wow. So then we have some that are refurbished that were actually used in jet engines and some that are designed specifically for this purpose. Exactly. And I'm trying to imagine how that looks, like just sort of like rows and rows of jet engines, essentially, just kind of churning.

10:44Patrick Thomas:Yeah. Although aeroderivative turbines are considered to be pretty space efficient, you know, because they need to be on a jet. They have to be pretty small. They take up less space, which is good. And compared to some other types of equipment out there, they're also cleaner burning.

11:04Alex Ossola:That was Heard on the Street columnist Jinju Lee speaking with our colleague Patrick Coffey. Hear more of their interview on tomorrow's episode of Tech News Briefing.

11:17Alex Ossola:And finally, we have an update on the arrest of former Prince Andrew earlier today. Police didn't disclose the exact allegations they were investigating, but the arrest comes after disclosures about his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein that have dominated headlines in the UK. Police questioned Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor today, but he hasn't been charged. Police say he's been released under investigation. Earlier in the day, King Charles said he had learned of his younger brother's arrest with, quote, deepest concern, and that the royal family supported a full investigation. Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to his dealings with Epstein.

11:51Alex Ossola:He didn't respond to requests for comment. And that's what's news for this Thursday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Pierre Bien-Aimé and Alexis Moore with supervising producer Tali Arbel. I'm Alex Osula for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.

12:07Patrick Thomas:Thank you.