Brooke Sutherland, Columnist

Grainger Is Caught Between an Amazon and a Buffett

It’s held up better than expected, but things aren’t going to get any easier.

June 5, 2018 at 1:27 PM UTC

Brooke Sutherland is Bloomberg News' Boston bureau chief and writes the Industrial Strength Newsletter. She was previously a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals and industrial companies and an M&A reporter for Bloomberg News.

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Photographer: Matthew Staver/ Bill Pugliano

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The best performing industrial stock this year is … W.W. Grainger Inc.?

This is the same supplier of factory-floor basics that got pummeled last year as investors anticipated its imminent comeuppance at the hands of Amazon.com Inc., which is seeking to do to business-goods distribution what it did to retailers. But Grainger has taken a U-turn and is now leading the S&P 500 Industrial Index, with its stock closing near a record on Monday. It’s befuddling.