Walmart is cracking open a bottle of modestly priced bubbly to celebrate the stellar sales numbers it reported earlier this week. The big-box behemoth said it was able to win market share from rivals last quarter mainly by luring in customers from the $100K+ income bracket.

• The company posted expectation-beating Q3 sales and lifted its end-of-the-year projections as shopping going into the holidays appeared strong, with items like toys and Apple AirPods selling particularly well.
• That could be a positive harbinger for the rest of retail during jolly season, with the National Retail Federation predicting a slight increase in holiday spending from the previous year.

Bougie buyers

On top of offering good deals at a time when many Americans’ purses are pinched by inflation, the retailer lured in the Whole Foods crowd by introducing premium store brand groceries and beefing up its electronics and home goods offerings. Customers making six figures or more accounted for roughly 75% of market share growth last quarter.

Walmart is also treading on Amazon’s turf by expanding its e-commerce assortment and offering fast-tracked order options, while lowering delivery costs to juice profits.

Tariffs threaten bargain land

The retailer warned that tariffs promised by the President-elect Donald Trump (up to 100% on all Chinese goods and up to 20% for all other countries) might make its products less affordable, as the company would have to pass on some extra costs to customers.

Walmart has already been diversifying its supply chains in response to the tariffs during Trump’s first term. CFO John David Rainey told CNBC that about two-thirds of its merchandise is sourced from the US, which means tariffs’ impact on its business would be limited.

Big picture: Tariffs could also hurt Walmart’s retail competitors, which have suffered as customers pull away from non-essential spending.—SK

Trump tapped Howard Lutnick to be commerce secretary, McMahon for education. In a post on social media, the president-elect praised Lutnick as “a dynamic force on Wall Street.” The billionaire CEO of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, Lutnick is a longtime supporter of Trump, serving as a co-chair of his 2024 transition team. Lutnick reportedly sought the role of treasury secretary and earned the endorsement of Elon Musk but fell out of favor for the job, per the Wall Street Journal. Trump nominated his other transition co-chair, former WWE CEO Linda McMahon, for education secretary. And he selected doctor and TV personality Mehmet Oz to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Ukraine fired US-made missiles into Russia for the first time. The strikes, which hit an ammunition depot in southwestern Russia, came just days after President Biden authorized Ukraine to use the long-range weapons, called ATACMS. The authorization was reportedly in response to North Korea sending thousands of troops to the region to help Russia, and to deter the country from sending more. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin updated Russia’s nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons—a move that was long planned but likely timed to send a message following Ukraine’s use of American-made missiles. Putin’s threat briefly dinged US stocks, which then recovered.

Netflix said the Tyson-Paul fight was the “most streamed global sporting event ever.” According to the streaming giant, 108 million people watched at least a minute of last week’s live boxing match, peaking at 65 million concurrent viewers. (For comparison, 210 million people watched this year’s Super Bowl.) That’s the good news for Netflix. The bad news is that 108 million people watched a stream racked with technical issues, underscoring the work Netflix still needs to do on its live sports infrastructure before it streams two NFL games on Christmas.—AE

Private equity wants a taste of “the juice.” Blackstone announced yesterday that it’s buying a majority stake in Jersey Mike’s Subs, valuing the second-largest US sandwich chain—behind only Subway—at $8 billion. CEO Peter Cancro will stay on as the top exec as the chain aims to open 10,000 locations around the world.

The New Jersey Dream. With the help of his football coach/local banker, Cancro bought the original sub shop in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, in 1974 for $125,000 during his final year of high school (and then he skipped college). Jersey Mike’s now has 3,000 stores in all 50 states and Canada, bringing in $3.3 billion in sales last year.

• Jersey Mike’s locations make about $1.35 million per unit—more than double that of the average Subway, per CNN.
• With this deal, Cancro is worth $7 billion, making him one of the world’s 500 richest people, according to Bloomberg.

There’s always money in the sandwich stand. This is Blackstone’s third restaurant chain investment this year after drive-thru coffee chain 7 Brew and Tropical Smoothie Cafe. Other private equity groups have recently made big lunch moves, with Roark Capital buying Subway last year for $9.6 billion.—MM

Jaguar’s new rebrand is generating hearty public discourse, and we don’t even know what the cars look like yet. The company unveiled a modern design overhaul yesterday that bucks its longstanding old-money aesthetic as part of a huge marketing shift as it gears up to release a new electric fleet of cars in 2026.

Why the rebrand? Jaguar is in its doldrums. US sales are down 80% since 2017, and the automaker only moved ~8,000 vehicles last year, compared to 350,000 each by BMW and Mercedes. Instead of continuing to compete (and lose) against those premium makers, Jaguar is relaunching itself as a high-end, luxury EV brand hoping to sit among the ranks of Bentley and Rolls-Royce.

What’s new? Design-wise, the ol’ growling Jag is gone, replaced by fresh logos and a sleek new typeface that left fans perplexed. But the real change will come on the lot. Jaguar will stop producing its only current model, the best-selling F-Pace SUV, at the end of this year and will replace it with three EV models. The company said that the new cars will cost roughly twice as much as previous ones.

Looking ahead…Jaguar will preview its concept car for the first time on Dec. 2 during Miami Art Week.—CC

Get your dogs out of the room, because we’re about to talk about their favorite toy. Lamb Chop—the plushie version of a 1960s sock puppet—has taken over canine culture, like a woolly cult leader. Per The Atlantic, there are 20 different versions of Lamb Chop, the most popular plush toy at the online pet store Chewy. Because some dogs tend to rip poor Lamby to shreds, many owners buy more than five per year, and thousands of customers set the product to autoship.

Experts attribute the toy’s success to its versatility—it caters to several types of dogs (e.g., gentle dogs use it as an emotional support sheepling, while aggressive dogs joyously eviscerate it, exposing its fluffy entrails). But there’s another theory: Owners are super excited when they give their dogs a new Lamb Chop, and the dogs are just trying to make their masters happy by playing with it all the time.—AE