Kohl's boosts full-year outlook on strong holiday sales, shares soar at CNBC. "Kohl's on Monday reported same-store sales during the holidays climbed nearly 7 percent from 2016. Recent initiatives including partnering with Amazon and bringing in more items from popular athletic apparel brands Under Armour, Nikeand Adidas are paying off for Kohl's, which said more people have been shopping its stores." Read more   Raymond James sues Lowe’s over investment banking deal by Margie Manning at Tampa Bay Business Journal. "Lowe’s agreed to pay Raymond James $200,000 for any deal that closed...In November 2015, Lowe’s notified Raymond James that it was having direct discussions with [...]

Neiman Marcus CEO Karen Katz Will Step Aside, Succeeded by Former Ralph Lauren Executive by Suzanne Kapner & Joann S. Lublin at Wall Street Journal. "Karen Katz, a Neiman lifer who has served as CEO and president since 2010, is stepping aside and will be succeeded by former Ralph Lauren executive Geoffroy van Raemdonck, the people said. Ms. Katz, 60 years old, plans to retire from her executive duties but will retain her board seat, the people said." Read more (subs.) | CNBC article   Apple Says All Macs, iPhones and iPads Exposed to Chip Security Flaws by Mark Gurman at [...]

  Walgreens Q1: Retail pharmacy US comp sales +4.7% / US comp retail sales -0.9% "Fiscal 2018 first quarter net earnings attributable to Walgreens Boots Alliance...22.1 percent to $821 million compared with the same quarter a year ago...The decreases in GAAP net earnings...were mainly due to impairment of the company's equity method investment in Guangzhou Pharmaceuticals." Press release   Costco December Comp Sales +8.8% (ex-gas & F/X) "The (one additional shopping day) positively impacted total and comparable sales by approximately +2.5% for the five-week December retail month." Press release   Rite Aid Q3: Revenue -5.6% / Retail pharmacy revenue -3.0% [...]

  Amazon killed their wine website. Now the two founders are back with another. by Jason Del Rey at Recode. "A few days ago, the duo launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for a new wine-selling venture called Casemates, which allows wine producers to sell directly to U.S. consumers online. On Day 1, the campaign surpassed its $50,000 goal; it sat at $104,000 as of Tuesday morning." Read more   Walmart CIO Clay Johnson Q&A by Peter High at Forbes. "We are doing two big things. The first one is that we are moving to a product model and to end-to-end [...]

  Amazon Will Buy Target This Year, Loup's Gene Munster Predicts by Beth Mellor at Bloomberg. "Target is the ideal offline partner for Amazon for two reasons, shared demographic and manageable but comprehensive store count,” Munster wrote...Market-share numbers suggest a deal would be approved by regulators, and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. would still have a larger share than an Amazon-Target combination, Munster said. He estimated a take-out valuation of $41 billion, or a 15 percent premium to Target’s current value." Read more   First recreational marijuana shops open in California by Lisa Krieger at Mercury News. "California is now the sixth [...]