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[0:00:53] From Bloomberg World Headquarters, I'm Charlie Pellett. The Dow, the S&P, NASDAQ all lower today. Stocks did pair their declines. And this update brought to you by National Realty. 30% returns on cash in rented real estate. Find them at NR.
[0:01:09] Stocks paired losses as the dollar fell. Treasuries and gold gained after U.S. employers added the fewest jobs in almost six years in May, bolstering the case for the Federal Reserve to leave rates lower for longer. S&P 500 index down six to 2099, a drop of three-tenths of one percent. Shares of commodity producers extended gains, helping the S&P 500 index trim declines.
[0:01:36] Gold surging 33.60 the ounce to 12.46, a gain there of 2.8%. Crude down 0.8%, down 39 cents, 48.78 a barrel on West Texas Intermediate. The Dow down 31 points, a drop of 0.2%, NASDAQ down 28, a drop of 0.6%. I'm Charlie Pellett. That's a Bloomberg Business Flash. This is Taking Stock with Kathleen Hayes and Pim Foxx on Bloomberg Radio.
[0:02:06] Shares of Walmart stores down about a tenth of a percent today. Trades lower by eight cents at $70.87. This comes after Walmart says it's going to test grocery delivery service with Uber technologies and Lyft, all part of Walmart's effort to compete head-to-head with Amazon.com. Let's find out more from Shannon Pettypiece, U.S. consumer reporter for Bloomberg News. Shannon, always a pleasure. Thanks for being with us.
[0:02:33] Yeah, sure. Glad to be here. All right. So at the meeting, CEO, this was Doug McMillan's effort to kind of say, look, we're in the technology business as much as we're in the retail business. The annual shareholder meeting today, they're going to start this grocery delivery service in Denver and Phoenix later in the month. Is this really what's going to turn Walmart around? Does it need it? Well, I think what they're doing here with this grocery delivery and also this grocery pickup service is they're really trying to.
[0:03:03] Fortify the walls of the fort around their grocery business. Grocery accounts for more than half of Walmart's U.S. business. They can't lose in grocery. And when you have Amazon, Google, Target dipping their toes into grocery delivery, I think Walmart knows, yes, they obviously, they sort of missed the boat on the Internet with Amazon when it comes to general merchandise, and they've been trying really hard to play catch up.
[0:03:28] Thank you so much for joining us.
[0:03:51] So you order your groceries online, and then you drive into the Walmart parking lot. You send a notification to the store that you're there. In less than five minutes, an employee wheels a cart out, puts them in your trunk, and you never have to get out of the car. They're trying to do all of these things to really make sure they aren't going to be losing any grocery business and hopefully picking up some more, hopefully attracting customers who want to shop at Walmart who will because of the convenience. And then, of course,
[0:04:17] Just improving their brand in general with customers. Hey, we're a company with a website. We do stuff online. You're in the parking lot to get groceries. Don't you want to stop in and pick up some kids' clothes? And then it will sort of trickle out to the rest of their business. So, Shannon, share some of the color as you report all day at the Bud Walton Arena on the University of Arkansas campus at the Walmart annual meeting. Because what strikes me, too, this seems on a very practical level. This is huge.
[0:04:45] Get the groceries out there. Maintain this business. But isn't it also something about saying, hey, we're not the old Walmart. We are kind of hip and cool. Isn't that part of what they are trying to get out to customers and people who buy their stock? Yeah, that's a really interesting question. And something I've been thinking about the past few days as I've been here is this sort of mix between old Walmart, new Walmart. So they've been bringing some things back from the past.
[0:05:13] This smiley face logo that in the 1980s and the 1990s was all over Walmart marketing material. When there was a low price, they'd have that smiley face next to it. That went away in 2006, and they announced at this meeting they were bringing that back. Maybe it was last month, they brought back the door greeters who had sort of been dispersed to other parts of the store to do other tasks.
[0:05:39] The company said they're bringing those back to the door. This old hallmark of Sam Walton lay away over Christmas. They brought that back. So there's been a number of big things that used to be hallmarks of Walmart that went away that they're bringing back. So in a sense, there's this little bit back to the future. But at the same time, right, we've got all of this new tech coming out.
[0:05:57] We're also a new hip company. So it's an interesting dynamic. Shannon Pettypiece, thank you so very much. Interesting conversation about Walmart at the annual meeting today. Well, breaking news this afternoon, Tony Fadell stepping down as the head of Nest Labs. A blow to Google, which bought the company just two years ago. Joining us now is Jack Clark. Jack, interesting story. You say it's a blow to Google to have Tony Fadell leaving, but some say he was a problem.
[0:06:26] There have been employee complaints about Nest for the last few months. There have also been delays on product. At the same time, Fidel has said in a blog post that this is a personal decision that's been underway since last year. However, it is a blow to Google to lose a high-profile CEO of one of its Alphabet ventures, probably the most high-profile of the non-Google businesses.
[0:06:49] Jack, is there any indication that the $3.2 billion that Google paid for Nest, is it an acquisition they regret or is it just an executive issue? They're portraying it as an executive issue. They point out that revenues have grown. Internet of Things products are a crucial part of Alphabet's future. But you may notice that Google just announced Google Home, which is a smart AI-powered virtual assistant that will sit in your living room and talk to you, much like Amazon's Echo.
[0:07:20] That's being done out of the Google business rather than Nest. So they're certainly hedging their bets with another product line not coming from Nest now. Well, next move for Tony Fadell. Any ideas quickly? Well, he's got a startup that he's sort of involved in that does internet-connected go-kart children. So he's going to be working on that for a while. He's already been working on that for a few weeks. That became public, I believe, last month. And he's a lifelong...
[0:07:50] Hardware tinkerer. I don't think this is the last we'll hear from him. Jack Clark, thank you so very much. Bloomberg News reporter about Tony Fadell leaving Nest two years after Google bought the company. Pam, we've got a big day on Monday. Janet Yellen speaks at 12.30. What will she say about the economy and future interest rate moves? Yes, and a big day beginning on Tuesday for us. We'll be broadcasting live from Pershing's Insight 2016 conference at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando.
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