Retail behemoth Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT) will be reporting earnings this Thursday before market open. Here’s what investors should know.
Walmart beat analysts’ revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $177.8 billion, up 7.3% year on year. It was a slower quarter for the company, with EPS guidance for next quarter missing analysts’ expectations and revenue guidance for next quarter slightly missing analysts’ expectations.
Is Walmart a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.
This quarter, the market is expecting Walmart’s revenue to grow 5.3% year on year, in line with the 4.8% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year.
Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business will stay the course heading into earnings. Walmart rarely misses Wall Street’s revenue estimates.
Looking at Walmart’s peers in the non-discretionary retail segment, some have already reported their Q2 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Grocery Outlet delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 1.1%, beating analysts’ expectations by 2.1%, and Sprouts reported revenues up 4.7%, in line with consensus estimates. Grocery Outlet traded up 6.2% following the results while Sprouts was also up 9.7%.
Read our full analysis of Grocery Outlet’s results here and Sprouts’s results here.
Investors in the non-discretionary retail segment have had steady hands going into earnings, with share prices up 1.9% on average over the last month. Walmart is up 3% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $137.93 (compared to the current share price of $115.53).
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