“Top Democrat in House: Turn your attention to Target Breach (and away from Healthcare.gov)” at Chicago Tribune. “Representative Elijah Cummings said the committee’s focus since October has been investigating the security of the federal government’s health insurance website, HealthCare.gov, which has not been breached. He urged the committee chairman, Republican Darrell Issa, to turn his attention to Target.” Read more

 

“Kantar Price Study: Wal-Mart beats Amazon as low price leader” by Kim Souza at The City Wire. “Analysts noted that these two retailers are seeking the same consumers with two different strategies. Kantar Retail ShopperScape, found that Wal-Mart shares half (51%) of its past four-week shoppers with Amazon, and Wal-Mart shoppers are twice as likely to frequent Amazon (19%) on a weekly basis than Walmart.com (9%).” See the Price Comparisons

 

“Visa Sues Home Depot” by Carla Caldwell at Atlanta Business Chronicle. “Visa filed the lawsuit Tuesday in New York. The credit card company wants a declaration that Home Depot lacks standing to recoup any damages stemming from Visa’s alleged collusion with MasterCard and a group of banks to artificially inflate the fees charged to the merchants who take their credit cards, the website said.” Read more

 

“NRF: Holiday Sales Increased 3.8%” “Total holiday retail sales, which include November and December sales, increased 3.8 percent to $601.8 billion…In addition, non-store holiday sales, which is an indicator of online and e-commerce sales, grew 9.3 percent to $95.7 billion.” Read more

 

“Target: Blogger Who Broke Breach Story Skeptical of Free Credit Monitoring” by Jim Hammerand at Minn./St. Paul Bus. Journal. “(Target) is offering one-year of Experian credit monitoring to anyone who shopped at Target’s U.S. stores…Brian Krebs, the blogger who first broke news of the data breach, noted the Target deal with Experian Tuesday and pointed to a story he wrote last year about an Experian subsidiary that sold personal data to an online ID theft service. “What could go wrong?” he tweeted sarcastically.” Read more

 

“Target Lawsuit Tally: 68 (so far)” by Joel Schectman at WSJ. “Customers and small banks have filed 68 class action suits, in 21 states and Washington, D.C., alleging Target didn’t take proper steps to protect consumer data, according to Tina Wolfson, an attorney at Ahdoot & Wolfson P.C., who is bringing one of the cases. Ms. Wolfson provided a document tracking the cases, which was reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.” Read more

 

“Walgreen’s CEO Appears on Mad Money; Cramer Sees ‘Tailwind’ for Stock” by Lee Brodie at CNBC. “I was skeptical,” Cramer admitted “I didn’t realize Walgreen was trying to become more than a drug store. But because of the changes it has made, Walgreen has moved from the $300 billion drug store market they’re currently in, to the multi-trillion dollar health care market.” That’s big opportunity.” See video interview / Read more

 

“Happening Today: Walgreen’s CEO Presents at J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference at 10am PT” Listen to Webcast

 

“Pricing Survey at 485 Walgreen/CVS/Rite Aid Stores” via Market Watch. “Walgreens stores in a single market were up to five times more likely than a competitor to charge different prices for the same item…In every market, Walgreens had the greatest percentage of products that cost at least 10 percent more than the market’s lowest price.” Read the report

 

“Jewel-Osco president stepping down” by Robert Channick at Chicago Tribune. “Jim Rice, who was named vice president of operations for Jewel-Osco in August, has been elevated to run the 180-store grocery chain on an interim basis.” Read more

 

“Catch of the day: Home Depot employee saves falling baby with amazing last-minute catch” at Happy Place. “Dale Strickland’s brother Chris deserves a medal, or at least a 3-minute interview on Today, after saving a baby in an amazing last-second catch.” See the 10 second video

 

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