Wall Street and Twitter react to Amazon’s blockbuster $13.7B acquisition of Whole Foods

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Amazon’s announcement Friday morning of its intention to acquire Whole Foods for nearly $14 billion sent shockwaves through the tech, retail, and financial industries.

The acquisition, Amazon’s largest to date by a mile, caused shares of other traditional grocery giants to sink — Target was down nearly 10 percent, Kroger was down 14 percent, Costco was down 6 percent, and Walmart, which announced its own big acquisition Friday, was down 5 percent.

CNBC’s Jay Yarow, who called the acquisition “brilliant,” explained why those companies are all seeing their shares fall Friday.

“Amazon is a fierce competitor,” he wrote. “If you work in the grocery business, you’re looking at what happened to bookstores, you’re looking at what’s happening to the retail industry, and you’re thinking, ‘Uh oh, I’m next.'”

Meanwhile, Wall Street seemed to like the deal for Amazon, as its shares are up more than 3 percent.

Analysts from Baird noted that the Whole Foods takeover “fits Amazon’s general criteria for an acquisition, which includes a strong brand and customer value proposition.”

Amazon has until this point developed its own brick-and-mortar bookstores across the country, and tested grocery concepts with two AmazonFresh Pickup sites and the experimental Amazon Go store in its hometown. Amazon has also rolled out the AmazonFresh grocery delivery service across the country.

Some are skeptical of the pending deal, with one analyst telling CNBC that “Amazon seems to be moving further & further afield from their core competency.”

Others wondered how President Trump may react to the deal, given his comments last year about his antitrust concerns with Amazon.

The hot takes were on fire Friday morning; here’s a sampling of the more funny and intriguing tweets:

https://twitter.com/mekosoff/status/875712611672875009

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