Costco’s (COST) stock price has declined by more than 15% since hitting its 52-week high in July this year. Every time Amazon (AMZN) announces a deal, retail stocks get hit, and Costco has been at the receiving end twice this year.

First, it was the Sears (SHLD) deal with Amazon in June, and now it's Amazon’s decision to cut prices at Whole Foods (WFM). Retail stocks remain under tremendous pressure due to competitive forces and the expectation that Amazon will eat up most of the retail market share, leaving big box retailers without any room to maneuver.

There are

Whole Foods Market, Inc.(0.4%)(WFM–$42.11–NASDAQ)(NASDAQ:WFM) is an Austin, Texas based supermarket chain that offers organic food products. Whole Foods Market agreed on June 16, 2017, to be acquired by Amazon for $42 per share in cash which valued the company at $13.7 billion. The transaction requires shareholder and regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the second half of 2017.

From [url=http://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=Mario+Gabelli]Mario Gabelli[/url] ([url=http://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=Mario+Gabelli]Trades[/url], [url=http://www.gurufocus.com/holdings.php?GuruName=Mario+Gabelli]Portfolio[/url])'s second quarter 2017 Gabelli ABC Fund commentary.

Reporting on its performance for its first quarter as a public company, Blue Apron Holdings Inc. (APRN) posted second-quarter results before the opening bell on Aug. 10.

The meal-kit delivery service posted a loss of 47 cents per share, wider than the expected loss of 30 cents per share. Revenue of $238.1 million beat expectations of $235.8 million and increased 18% year over year.

The stock was down 17% when the market opened Thursday.

Blue Apron attributed the loss to unexpected costs incurred from opening a new facility. As a result of these costs as well as cuts in

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) posted its second-quarter 2017 earnings on July 27, beating revenue estimates but missing on earnings. The company’s bottom line saw a steep decline for the quarter as compared with second-quarter 2016. Profits stood at $197 million versus $857 million reported in the year-ago quarter. Post the earnings miss, the company’s stocks plunged more than 3% in after-hours trading.

The raw numbers

Amazon’s quarterly revenue was nearly $38 billion, up from $24.8 billion reported in second-quarter 2016. The company’s EPS stood at 40 cents, which was far below analysts' estimates of $1.42 a share. The company’s total operating

The stock market is discounting an accelerating rate of technological change in our society. A mad dash by investors is anticipating a world organized like “The Jetsons” cartoon from my childhood. We thought it would be useful to look back at other points in time when great technological change was anticipated and see how that worked out for Standard & Poor's 500 Index investors.

July 21, 1969

The U.S. put the first man on the moon. The speculation at that time was that there would be people living in space in the coming decades. Forty-eight years have passed and now

Our best performer was Whole Foods (NASDAQ:WFM), a leading retailer of organic and natural foods, whose stock soared 41.7% from $29.72 to $42.11, adding 51 basis points to the Fund’s return. The stock jumped in April after activist investor Jana Partners (Trades, Portfolio) took a nearly 9% stake in the company. Jana demanded management accelerate its turnaround or sell the company. The latter occurred in June, when Amazon announced it would acquire Whole Foods for $42 per share, or $13.7 billion.

From [url=http://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=Jerome+Dodson]Jerome Dodson[/url] ([url=http://www.gurufocus.com/StockBuy.php?GuruName=Jerome+Dodson]Trades[/url], [url=http://www.gurufocus.com/holdings.php?GuruName=Jerome+Dodson]Portfolio[/url])'s second quarter

As of June 30, 2017, the net asset value (“NAV”) of the Parnassus Fund – Investor Shares was $49.23, resulting in a gain of 4.19% for the second quarter. This compares to a gain of 3.09% for the S&P 500 Index (“S&P 500”) and a gain of 2.76% for the Lipper Multi-Cap Core Average, which represents the average return of the multi-cap core funds followed by Lipper (“Lipper average”). For the year-to-date, the Parnassus Fund – Investor Shares is up 9.47%, compared to a gain of 9.33% for the S&P 500 and 8.31% for the Lipper average.

Below is a

The Federal Trade Commission is now investigating the proposed Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) takeover of Whole Foods Market Inc. (WFM). This is thanks to a complaint filed by Consumer Watchdog that Amazon supposedly lures consumers in with false reference prices when they are actually more expensive.

Before we get all “gotcha” to Amazon, we may ask a fairly basic question: What in the world do reference pricing practices have anything to do with an Amazon-Whole Foods merger?

But let’s assume pricing practices warrant a probe into a completely unrelated merger, for whatever reason. How many times a day do consumers all

According to GuruFocus' list, these stocks have reached their 52-week highs.

Western Digital reached the 52-week high of $94.93

Western Digital Corp. (WDC)Â is the global leader in the hard disk drive market. The company develops, manufactures and provides data storage solutions to consumers, businesses and governments. The company's product portfolio includes hard disk drives, solid-state drives and public and private cloud data center storage solutions. Western Digital's merger with SanDisk positions the company as a broad-based provider of media-agnostic storage solutions, including SSDs.

The price of Western Digital shares has reached $94.93, which

The share price of Target Corp. (TGT) has remained almost flat over the past two years. The stock, however, is headed back in the upward direction though still down 24% year to date.

The retailer’s sales have fallen more than 5% in 2016 primarily due to fierce competition in both the retail and grocery market. The continuing rise in online sales has aggressively hurt brick-and-mortar sales. In 2015, Target’s chief rival, Wal-Mart (WMT), faced a similar situation and was severely hurt as its share price collapsed more than 30%.

Wal-Mart, however, has made a comeback and continues inching up at

Jana Partners (Trades, Portfolio) reported on Feb. 17 selling its entire position in Whole Foods, according to a filing released Thursday.

Jana Partners (Trades, Portfolio) reported owning 26,074,830 shares of Whole Foods, representing an 8.3% stake, from February to April for a total purchase price of $794.5 million. It unwound the stake over the past month for an average aggregate price of $1.21 billion, granting Jana a roughly $326.5 million reported profit on its quick activist investment.

Jana made its final and biggest sale -- 16.15 million shares – at its lowest sell price

Summer is usually a time when patriotism peaks in the U.S.

Between Memorial Day, Independence Day, cookouts, baseball and weekends spent at the lake, there’s something uniquely American about the heat of the summer. It’s also a great time to pour some money into a handful of U.S.-based stocks.

Five American stocks to evaluate

“Small businesses fuel a strong economy and ensure a good standard of living. And more important than the proverbial bottom line, small business creates communities,” says Jenni Jermyn

Costco (COST), the $73.3 billion Washington-based retailer, delivered its third quarter fiscal 2017 results in May, reporting 5.6% revenue growth to $86.7 billion in the recent 36 weeks in operations compared to the same period last year while having a strong 12% profit growth to $1.76 billion – a 2% margin vs. 1.9% in the last year.

Valuations

Costco is overvalued compared to its peers. According to GuruFocus data, the retailer had a trailing price-earnings (P/E) multiple of 29 times vs. the industry median of 20.7 times, a price-book (P/B) ratio of 7.4 times vs. the industry’s

Despite the continuously growing competition, Walmart Stores Inc. (WMT) has been performing pretty well this year. The stock is up nearly 7% year to date. A few years ago, Walmart was an undisputed leader in the retail industry, but the rise of online sales changed all that.

Although Walmart still holds a leading position in the retail industry, its chief rival Amazon (AMZN) continues to gain ground rapidly. Amazon has turned itself into the world’s third-largest retailer, up from the eighth position a year ago.

The continuous rise of online sales dented the retail giant’s business, but Walmart has been

Post-earnings release in mid-June of its first quarter 2017, Kroger (KR) shares fell about 26%. In addition to investors not being contented with the lowered guidance set by the retailer, the initial share price decline was exacerbated when Amazon (AMZN) announced its intentions to purchase Whole Foods (WFM) the following day.

Nonetheless, the $20 billion Ohio-based retailer delivered 4.9% revenue growth to $36.3 billion and a disappointing 56.5% fall in profits to $303 million having represented 0.8% margin compared to 2% in the same period last year.

Kroger recorded a 6.8% increase in costs to $2.3 billion thus leading to