CMS Invests
Technology Investor, Options Trader, Finance at Kalshi
Loblaw Companies might be an unspoken-of compounder, as Canadian Chinese food arrives in the US. x.comÂ
Discount retailers are a built-in recession hedge because consumers trade down rather than stop spending. Walmart, Costco, TJX, and Dollar General should benefit as worsening economic conditions send more shoppers through their doors. x.comÂ
Ahold Delhaize stays in a portfolio that finished a grinding quarter up over 25% year to date. x.comÂ
Walmart keeps compounding through recessions because people never stop eating in bad years; they buy more chicken and less filet, and Walmart sells the chicken. It compounded through the 2001, 2008 and 2020 recessions. Wealth comes from finding a business that never has a truly bad year, not from moonshots. x.comÂ
Kroger's push toward lower everyday prices and private label will squeeze legacy food brands from both sides: pressure on wholesale prices and lost share. Its three-year plan targets about $5 billion in customer-value investment and $4 billion in annualized cost savings. Retailers control shelves and consumers; weaker brands, neglected in favor of buybacks and M&A, may surrender more of the profit pool. Kroger itself risks pain from price wars. x.com x.com x.com x.com x.comÂ
Ingles Markets is not just a grocer but part retailer, part manufacturer and part real estate company. That combination protects margins in thin-margin grocery, reduces reliance on suppliers and landlords, and creates long-term asset value. x.comÂ
Dollarama is too richly valued to own despite its dominance in Canada and decades of solid execution, even near a 52-week low and after Stifel's upgrade to buy. It makes a competitive business work by offering unbelievable deals versus other stores and Amazon. x.com x.com x.com x.comÂ
Kroger keeps quietly rewarding shareholders with dependable, defensive results, because everybody has to eat. In Q2 FY26 sales rose just 2% to $34.6B, but operating profit grew 12.5% to $971M as Kroger trimmed D&A and held costs flat. Net earnings rose 5%, while EPS jumped 15% to $1.05 because aggressive buybacks shrank the share count from 662M to 606M. x.comÂ
General Mills will struggle to raise prices or grow as GLP-1 drugs and inflation push shoppers toward store brands and away from cereals. It has two years of negative EPS growth and estimates, and its operating cash flow and margins should suffer in that environment. The company does produce cash and is cheap, as @calvinfroedge notes with $2-3B of annual operating cash flow and a shareholder yield above 10%. x.com x.comÂ
Walmart has the strongest fundamentals in retail, with $725B+ of revenue, exploding e-commerce and market-share gains while rivals bleed. It is a defensive cash-printing machine in a shaky economy, and analysts rate it a moderate buy with $140+ targets. x.comÂ