ASX 200 investors aren't used to the Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX: WES) share price doing anything except rising in recent months. Wesfarmers has been one of the ASX 200's best performing blue chips in 2021 so far, and indeed over the past few years.
The Wesfarmers share price is currently up more than 23% year to date, including almost 2.5% in the past week (almost worth the same as Wesfarmers' current annual dividend yield).
It's also up more than 35% over the past year, and a very healthy 108% over the past 5 years.
And today is no different it seems. After shaking off some midday wobbles and blues, Wesfarmers shares are currently up 0.58% to $63.73. That's just a whisker away from the company's all-time high of $63.95 that we saw just yesterday.
So what's behind all of these new highs?
Well, a number of things have been attracting investors' attention to this industrial conglomerate. Most notable was Wesfarmers' $687 million bid for the pharmaceutical company Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ASX: API) that was made public last month.
Wesfarmers owns coal mines, chemical plants and a clothing line. This is in addition to its most famous assets in Bunnings Warehouse, OfficeWorks, Kmart and Target. But it doesn't yet have significant exposure to pharmacies. If this deal eventually goes ahead, that would obviously change.
But we did get some other news today that might be influencing the Wesfarmers share price.
Wesfarmers share price rises, new digital push to thank?
According to a report in The Australian today, Wesfarmers has poached Australia Post's head of consumer and community Nicole Sheffield. Ms Sheffield will join Wesfarmers in November. She will reportedly be filling a "newly created digital data role reporting directly to [Wesfarmers CEO] Rob Scott".
This role represents an expansion of Wesfarmers' digital data strategy, with Ms Sheffield set to oversee retail data across Bunnings, Kmart and Target.
The report quotes a Wesfarmers spokesperson as stating the following on this development:
This is a new role for Wesfarmers, reflecting the strategic importance and growth potential of our data and digital strategies, and Nicole will work in close partnerships with the divisions.
We might find out more about Wesfarmers' new digital data push when the company reports its FY21 earnings on 27 August.
At the current Wesfarmers share price, the company has a market capitalisation of $72 billion. It also has a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 38.3, and a trailing dividend yield of 2.6%.
