Wal-Mart Wants to be Your Stock Broker
May 27th, 2007While Goldman Sachs creates a private stock exchange for clients with assets in excess of $100 million, Joe and Jane Six Pack are going to make informed investment decisions after buying grape soda and tater tots…
Sounds about right.
Via: CNN:
A small item in The Wall Street Journal caught my eye recently about a new tie-up between mega-retailer Wal-Mart (WMT) and a discount brokerage company in Washington state called ShareBuilder Corp. The Journal reports that Wal-Mart recently has begun including ShareBuilder’s services on its Web site and plans to begin testing discount brokerage in its stores. This after the Beast of Bentonville recently backed away from its bid for a charter to run an industrial bank.
No one has paid much attention to this fascinating little report, but they should. Wal-Mart opponents will cite this as an example that Wal-Mart wants to sell everything. Already Wal-Mart offers other financial services, including money orders, bill payment and check-cashing services, according to the Journal. The better question is whether or not Wal-Mart has any business in the financial services business and whether its customers want to attend to their portfolio while they’re shopping for groceries.
Related: Wal-Mart to Open 400 In-Store “Health†Clinics
Research Credit: Life After the Oil Crash
Maybe its a coded signal? someone has to soak up the paper at the top of the market
~even the bell hop was giving out stock tips~
I remember a story I read years ago, this was just prior to the big Asian Stock crash, about a businessman in Hong Kong who said that on the day his waitress was giving him stock tips was the day he called his broker and got out. Similar story was told about the big Wall Street crash and shoe shine boys… Coincidence?