Topic: How To Invest

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, May 17, 2024

Article Excerpt

WALMART INC., $64.65, New York symbol WMT, is a buy. The company is the world’s biggest retailer, with over 10,500 outlets in 19 countries. Walmart continues to benefit as inflation draws more shoppers to its value-focused stores, particularly for groceries and health products. It’s also profiting from stronger e-commerce sales, as well as higher advertising revenue (such as selling ads on screens in its self-checkout lanes). In the fiscal 2025 first quarter, ended April 30, 2024, sales rose 6.0%, to $161.51 billion from $152.30 billion a year earlier. That beat the consensus forecast of $159.50 billion. Walmart’s U.S. same-store sales (including online) rose 3.8%. That was entirely due to a higher number of transactions (up 3.8%), which offset no change in selling prices. As well, U.S. online sales jumped 22% while advertising revenue rose 26%. If you factor out gains and losses on investments and other unusual items, earnings per share rose 22.4%, to $0.60 from $0.52. That also topped the consensus estimate of $0.52 a..