Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT) stock jumped 10 percent on Thursday after the company reported a big second-quarter earnings beat and hit its target for online sales growth. Unlike other retailers who are struggling with rising costs, Walmart seems to be thriving in a difficult environment.
For the second straight quarter, Walmart wowed the market by exceeding Wall Street expectations on earnings per share, revenue and same-store sales growth.
WMT earnings by the numbers. On Thursday, WMT reported second-quarter EPS of $1.29 on revenue of $128.03 billion. Analysts had predicted $1.22 and $125.97 billion, respectively. Revenue was up 3.8 percent from a year ago.
Same-store sales grew 4.5 percent, ahead of Wall Street expectations for 2.4 percent.
After dropping to 23 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017, online sales growth continued trending in a positive direction for the second straight quarter. Walmart reported 40 percent e-commerce sales growth in the second quarter, up from 33 percent in the first quarter.
Sam’s Club performance was once again particularly strong in the second quarter. Walmart reported Sam’s Club same-store sales growth of 5 percent, its highest growth in six years.
International sales were up 4 percent to $29.5 billion. Walmart has been investing heavily in high-growth international markets such as India and China via partnerships and acquisitions.
“Thanks to the hard work of our associates, we had a great quarter with strong results and momentum across the business,” CEO Doug McMillon says in a statement. “We’re continuing to aggressively roll out grocery pickup and delivery in the U.S., and we recently announced expanded omni-channel initiatives in China and Mexico.”
Looking ahead, Walmart also raised its full-year adjusted EPS guidance from a previous range of between $4.75 and $5 to a new range of between $4.90 and $5.05. Walmart raised its full-year consolidated net sales growth guidance from a range between 1.5 percent and 2 percent to “about 2 percent.” In addition, the company reiterated its previous guidance for full-year online sales growth of 40 percent.
Bank of America analyst Robert Ohmes says…
Click here to continue reading
Want to learn more about how to profit off the stock market? Or maybe you just want to be able to look sophisticated in front of your coworkers when they ask you what you are reading on your Kindle, and you’d prefer to tell them “Oh, I’m just reading a book about stock market analysis,” rather than the usual “Oh, I’m just looking at pics of my ex-girlfriend on Facebook.” For these reasons and more, check out my book, Beating Wall Street with Common Sense. I don’t have a degree in finance; I have a degree in neuroscience. You don’t have to predict what stocks will do if you can predict what traders will do and be one step ahead of them. I made a 400% return in the stock market over five years using only basic principles of psychology and common sense. Beating Wall Street with Common Sense is now available on Amazon, and tradingcommonsense.com is always available on your local internet!
