Walmart early Thursday reported better-than-expected earnings for the fiscal fourth quarter. The discount giant, which gave a relatively upbeat sales outlook, said it will focus on value with many of its shoppers worried about inflation. WMT stock rose modestly.
Walmart Earnings
Walmart earnings rose 10% to $1.53 per share, with sales up a fraction to $152.87 billion. Analysts expected Walmart earnings per share of $1.50 on revenue of $151.3 billion.
U.S. Walmart same-store sales excluding fuel advanced 5.6%, meeting forecasts. Walmart's U.S. e-commerce sales were up just 1% vs. a year earlier, but up 70% vs. two years ago.
Sam's Club comp sales increased 10.4%.
The retailer sees U.S. Walmart comps rising slightly more than 3% in the new fiscal 2023.
Walmart stuck to its long-term growth forecast for earnings to rise in the mid-single digits.
Walmart raised its dividend by a cent to 56 cents per share. It plans to buyback $10 billion worth of WMT stock in fiscal 2023
WMT Stock
Shares of the Dow Jones retail giant rose 4% to 138.88 in Thursday's stock market trading, as defensive consumer staples stocks were among the day's best performers. WMT stock has been slumping for the past few weeks, trading near its worst levels since last March. Walmart stock is still below its 50-day and 200-day moving averages.
The relative strength line for WMT stock has been lagging since March 2020 and is near six-year lows. The RS line, the blue line in the chart provided, tracks a stock's performance vs. the S&P 500 index.
Target fell 1.8%. TGT stock also is at multimonth lows. Target earnings are due March 1.
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