This company is in the freight transportation business, providing truckload, intermodal, and contract carriage facilities to customers across a diverse set of industries in the US, Canada, and Mexico. It specializes in handling imports through its “shore to door” service. Major customers include the Burlington Northern and Norfolk Southern railways.

Visa was traditionally a method for consumers to make payments to businesses. But increasingly it’s also involved in person-to-person payments, business-to-business payments, business-to-consumer payments, and even some government-to-person payments. Visa itself does not issue credit cards – they are issued under license, mostly by banks. Visa processes most of the transactions and collects service and data processing fees, effectively amounting to “toll booth” charges on every Visa transaction.

Quebec-based Couche-Tard has grown by acquisition into a global giant with 14,480 convenience stores/gas stations. Although it’s a Canadian headquartered company, it now derives 63% of its revenues from the US, 25% from thirteen northern European countries plus Hong Kong, and just 12% from Canada. It employs 149,000 people across its network.

Costco needs little introduction. About 69% of its 900 warehouse stores are in the US, 12% in Canada, and 5% in Mexico. The remaining 14% are mostly in the UK, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan. Costco’s members-only warehouse format and its focus on selling very high volumes but with a limited selection of products is designed to achieve the lowest costs and lowest prices.

IWM is an ETF designed to track the investment results of the Russell 2000 Index. The underlying index measures the performance of the small-capitalization sector of the U.S. equity market.