Apple -- AAPL -- Market Cap Watch -- December 26, 2024

Locator: 44538AAPL.

**************************
Walmart vs Amazon

In a sidebar discussion with a reader:

I no longer think of AMZN and WMT as direct competitors.

WMT for me is still RETAIL.

AMZN for me is now AI.

Look at e-commerce below. For me, e-commerce is as much AI as it is retail. Amazon is data mining their e-commerce data as is WMT, but Amazon has so much more. And AMZN can spin on a dime when changes need to be made.

For me, investing well requires one to know:

• what sector to place the ticker in which one is interested;
• know the "average" p/e of the tickers in that sector;
• know the history of the p/e of the ticker in which one is interested;
• know the margins of the ticker in which one is interested and the margins of the other tickers in that category.

Of those four data points, the most important? Knowing what sector place the ticker in which one is interested.

 

That's why AAPL is so difficult. It's in a sector of its own. The closest sector that matches AAPL? Fashion. 

 *******************************
The Year Of The All-Day Cafe

Link here.

The upcoming year will see out-of-towners moving into Dallas-Fort Worth to open snazzy spots like Delilah, a supper club, and Avra, an upscale Greek restaurant. More importantly, 2025 will bring a delicious roster of food for all of us, with barbecue, burgers and tacos on menus. And, we’re pleased to report that three of our most exciting new restaurants and bars of 2025 boast great eats from sunup past sundown, showing an upswing in all-day cafes.

Let’s pause on that all-day phenomenon for a moment. Restaurants cut back hours during the COVID-19 pandemic. Small-business owners removed entire days of service to keep costs lower. So it’s a big leap that, in 2025, places like the coming-soon East Dallas restaurant Serritella will open just after dawn and close at 2 a.m.

Serritella co-owner Jason Gorsuch is banking on the idea that Lakewood needs its own Italian village — a place for coffee, lunch, dinner and drinks. He thinks the economy can support it.

Start the year at Vaqueros Texas Bar-B-Q, a Grapevine food truck that’s getting its first permanent home in Allen’s Watters Creek Village shopping center. Customers in line for Mexican-inflected barbecue will find a cocktail “kiosk” near the front with the offer of a margarita or a paloma while they wait. (We like it!) Then it’s on to birria tacos, hot links, brisket and more.

The owners of Rye and Apothecary on Dallas’ Lower Greenville are branching out to Plano to open a European bar and bistro named Flamant, the French word for flamingo. This restaurant team already has experience in the ‘burbs, as its first Texas restaurant, Rye, started in McKinney. Co-owners Tanner Agar, Taylor Rause and Nic Cain have a knack for bringing serious food to areas that can support it, but they don’t take themselves too seriously. Menu items at Flamant might include croquettes with dirty martini dipping sauce or octopus to share.

One of their bartenders just won a Michelin award for Exceptional Cocktails — the only one given in the state. Naturally, Flamant will have great drinks.