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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Walmart, Amazon, Dollar General, Sprouts Farmers Market and Casey's

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – April 21, 2020 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Walmart (WMT - Free Report) , Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) , Dollar General (DG - Free Report) , Sprouts Farmers Market (SFM - Free Report) and Casey's (CASY - Free Report) .

Here are highlights from Monday’s Analyst Blog:

Walmart & Others Hiring to Meet Coronavirus-Led Demand

The coronavirus outbreak has brought about a paradigm shift in consumer buying behavior. People are shopping essential items rather than making discretionary purchases. There has been a huge demand for grocery, packaged water, hand sanitizers, tissue paper, cleaning wipes, infant supplies and other related staples. As Americans are stocking up, companies are leaving no stone unturned to fill the shelves faster.

This rising demand calls for increased number of workers to ensure prompt services. The trend of social distancing in bid to curb the spread of the virus has led to higher e-commerce influx. Companies are witnessing a flurry of orders on account of customers’ unwillingness to visit offline stores. At this point, rapid deliveries are required to help people counter hard times. This holds true for online retailers and brick-and-mortar players with omni-channel operations.

Notably, the industry bellwether Walmart is on a hiring spree to keep up with demand during time of this biological catastrophe. The big-box retailer announced a hiring plan of an additional 50,000 associates, following the fulfillment of its commitment to employ 150,000 workers, six weeks ahead of schedule. The company plans to deploy this additional workforce in areas such as distribution and fulfillment centers as fillers and pickers; in stores and clubs as cashiers, stockers and personal shoppers; and for its fleet as drivers.

Amid all the gloominess, news related to additional hiring is surely a relief, as nearly 5.2 million more Americans have filed for unemployment benefits last week, per the Labor Department. Per reports, more than 22 million people have lost their jobs. The rapidly spreading novel coronavirus has claimed innumerable lives, roiled the stock market and brought the economy to standstill.

With strict measures imposed and people staying indoors, surge in online orders for essentials is being noticed. A week ago, Amazon unveiled plans to hire 75,000 additional associates, after it employed more than 100,000 workers last month to serve customers better during this unprecedented crisis. Moreover, the company intends to spend approximately more than $500 million in pay increases. Other companies such as Dollar General have earlier announced thousands of openings to cater to overwhelming demand of customers amid this disaster.

Apart from this, players in the industry are also focusing on bolstering omni-channel operations and ramping up delivery services to meet customers’ needs who are spending more time at home to minimize the risk of infection. Recently, Sprouts Farmers Market unveiled a plan to expand its grocery pickup service with Instacart to all of its stores by early next month. Likewise, leading food and grocery retailer Casey's recently expanded partnership with DoorDash to boost delivery capabilities.

The coronavirus pandemic has in a way turned out to be a blessing for retailers as they are trying to expand online and delivery services, which will enhance prospects after the virus-induced crisis eases. Experts believe that once the coronavirus spread is contained and vaccine discovered, the retail sector, which touches every sphere of our life, is likely to witness a sharp rebound.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit http://www.zacks.com/performancefor information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.

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