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Jim Cramer on Amazon Pharmacy's Impact on CVS, What's Driving Market Tuesday
Retail sales disappointed investors Tuesday morning.
U.S. retail sales rose at a slower-than-expected pace last month, data from the Commerce Department showed Tuesday, as spending slowed amid steady increases in weekly applications for unemployment benefits as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to accelerate.
Headline retail sales for the month of October rose 0.3% to $553.3 billion, the Commerce Department reported, missing the Street consensus forecast of a 0.5% advance.
Jim Cramer had an eye on retail, but not the headline sales number. Cramer said he's hyper-focused on Amazon's move into pharmacy and what it means for CVS and other pharmacy stocks. "We have to watch what Amazon is doing," Cramer said, noting his ActionAlertsPLUS.com charitable trust got greedy with its position in CVS.
"Do I wish I was in it [CVS] today? No," Cramer said.
Cramer expects another down day for CVS Wednesday as analysts react to Amazon's news.
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Amazon virtually opened its doors for Amazon Pharmacy, a new full-service digital pharmacy that lets Amazon Prime members order and fills their prescriptions online and have them delivered directly to their front doors.
And that comes over two years after Amazon purchased PillPack for $753 million. PillPack is an online pharmacy known for organizing pills into packets and also delivers drugs directly to consumers' homes.
Cramer said the move really puts Amazon in a place where it's nearing peak retail expansion when it comes to selling and delivering hard goods.
"There's really not much left [to sell]...they could sell cars..." Cramer said.
And there's also some positive news out of Tesla.
Tesla was added to the S&P 500 benchmark in a move that could trigger more than $50 billion in portfolio re-shuffling to make room for Elon Musk's clean-energy carmaker.
"It's really an acknowledgment that it's very hard to not have that company in the S&P...It's about time," Cramer said.
You can follow Jim Cramer and Katherine Ross on Twitter at @JimCramer and @byKatherineRoss. Read more from Katherine Ross here.
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This article was originally published by TheStreet.