Wal-Mart Stores Company Profile (NYSE:WMT)

Wal-Mart Stores trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol "WMT."

Wal-Mart Stores announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, February 21st. Investors of record on Friday, December 8th will be paid a dividend of $0.51 per share on Tuesday, January 2nd. This represents a $2.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.57%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, December 6th. View Wal-Mart Stores' Dividend History.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August, 17th. The company reported $1.08 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.07 by $0.01. The company earned $123.40 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $121.86 billion. Wal-Mart Stores had a return on equity of 16.87% and a net margin of 2.60%. The firm's revenue was up 2.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.07 earnings per share. View Wal-Mart Stores' Earnings History.

Wal-Mart Stores is scheduled to release their next quarterly earnings announcement on Thursday, November, 16th 2017. View Earnings Estimates for Wal-Mart Stores.

Wal-Mart Stores issued an update on its FY18 earnings guidance on Thursday, August, 17th. The company provided earnings per share guidance of $4.30-4.40 for the period, compared to the Thomson Reuters consensus EPS estimate of $4.36. Wal-Mart Stores also updated its Q3 guidance to $0.90-0.98 EPS.

33 brokers have issued 1 year price targets for Wal-Mart Stores' shares. Their forecasts range from $61.00 to $93.00. On average, they anticipate Wal-Mart Stores' stock price to reach $80.47 in the next twelve months. View Analyst Ratings for Wal-Mart Stores.

Here are some recent quotes from research analysts about Wal-Mart Stores stock:

• 1. According to Zacks Investment Research, "Walmart’s both earnings and revenues exceeded the Zacks Consensus Estimate in second-quarter fiscal 2018. The company has also raised the lower end of its fiscal 2018 earnings guidance. Notably, share price of Walmart has been outperforming the industry for the last six months. Encouragingly, the company is making efforts to boost sales and remains focused on building its e-Commerce capabilities and foraying into new markets through acquisitions. The company has posted positive comps at Walmart U.S. for 12 successive quarters. Further, the company’s acquisition of four e-Commerce businesses since the Jet.com acquisition is in line with its efforts to grow online activities. However, the company remains concerned due to currency headwinds, decline in international revenues, stiff competition from both brick and mortar and online retailers and huge investments in e-Commerce activities leading to margin pressure." (8/21/2017)
• 2. Oppenheimer Holdings, Inc. analysts commented, "fresher than it's been in years."Walmart is in the early stages of developing what could prove to be a "model" omni-channel structure, the analyst explained. For instance, the acquisition of Jet.com is just one of many "meaningful step forward" to solidify its status a "proven industry innovator" with many "unique capabilities." So far, there are early encouraging signs of growth in the online channel as gross merchandise volume accelerated to 69 percent on a year-over-year basis.Meanwhile, Walmart isn't neglecting its physical stores and has many initiatives ahead to spur growth, including:Online grocery shopping and collect in store.Two-day shipping with a $35 minimum from stores.Home delivery experiments.Also, improving food inflation trends could help boost top-line growth.Finally, the entrance of the Germany-based budget grocery chain Lidl to the U.S. market shouldn't cause investors to worry. Walmart was able to respond very aggressively to sustain its market position through pricing and merchandising fronts."In our view, WMT, more than many other leading chains, now recognizes an opportunity to leverage the key attributes that fuel its dominance in physical retail, in the digital world and increasingly go 'toe to toe' with eCommerce leaders such as amazon.com," (8/2/2017)
• 3. BMO Capital Markets analysts commented, "We still see many challenges ahead, including emerging competition from hard discounters and an adverse margin mix from growth in e-commerce, but we see a path of better relative sales and transaction growth over the next 12 months that is unlikely to cause the stock to underperform," (5/19/2017)
• 4. Wells Fargo & Company analysts commented, "We view WMT’s 7%+ FCF yield as attractive, but we see risk/reward more balanced at 7.6x NTM EV/EBITDA (in line with 5/10-year avg.) as incremental comp improvement gets harder from here, macro and tax overhangs remain, and the need for reinvestment could delay a return to profit growth to FY19 and beyond.  Marc Lore making his mark. WMT continues to shake up its ecom platform, which contributed +40bps to the WMT US comp, with global e-commerce sales and GMV (gross merch. value) increasing +15.5%/+17.5% (GMV +29.7% ex. Yihaodian). During the Q, several strategic moves came to light, including a larger stake in China’s JD.com to 12% and initiatives: 1) combining U.S. store and online procurement efforts, allowing WMT to better leverage its scale across platforms; 2) implementing free 2-day shipping ($35 min.) in the U.S. on the heels of recent ecom fulfillment investments; and 3) tuck-in acquisitions of Shoebuy and Moosejaw in order to widen WMT’s U.S. merchandising depth and category assortment. We view WMT’s ecom initiatives as the right long-term strategy, but we see a multi-year investment period in which profitability likely yields to ongoing store and ecommerce upgrades." (2/21/2017)

Wal-Mart Stores saw a increase in short interest in the month of August. As of August 31st, there was short interest totalling 46,509,612 shares, an increase of 10.0% from the August 15th total of 42,265,778 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 10,156,953 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 4.6 days. Currently, 3.2% of the company's stock are sold short.

Some companies that are related to Wal-Mart Stores include J Sainsbury plc (SBRY), Caseys General Stores (CASY), IRSA Inversiones Y Representaciones S.A. (IRS), Cresud S.A.C.I.F. y A. (CRESY), SpartanNash Company (SPTN), Conviviality PLC (CVR), Smart (SFS), Ingles Markets, Incorporated (IMKTA), Pantry (PTRY), The Fresh Market (TFM), Whole Foods Market (WFM) and Whole Foods Market (WFMI).

Wal-Mart Stores' management team includes the folowing people:

• Greg Boyd Penner, Chairman of the Board
• C. Douglas McMillon, President, Chief Executive Officer, Director
• M. Brett Biggs, Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
• Rollin L. Ford, Chief Administrative Officer, Executive Vice President
• Jeffrey J. Gearhart, Executive Vice President - Global Governance, Corporate Secretary
• Neil M. Ashe, Executive Vice President, President and Chief Executive Officer - Global eCommerce and Technology
• Daniel J. Bartlett, Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs
• Jacqueline P. Canney, Executive Vice President - Global People
• David Cheesewright, Executive Vice President, President and Chief Executive Officer - International Division
• Gregory S. Foran, Executive Vice President, President and Chief Executive Officer - Walmart U.S. division

Wal-Mart Stores' stock is owned by a number of of retail and institutional investors. Top institutional investors include Vanguard Group Inc. (3.51%), BlackRock Inc. (2.97%), State Street Corp (2.38%), Dodge & Cox (0.70%), FMR LLC (0.60%) and Northern Trust Corp (0.59%). Company insiders that own Wal-Mart Stores stock include Alice L Walton, C Douglas Mcmillon, David Cheesewright, David Chojnowski, Jacqueline P Canney, Jeffrey J Gearhart, Jim C Walton, Rollin L Ford, Rosalind G Brewer, S Robson Walton, Steven P Whaley and Timothy Patrick Flynn. View Institutional Ownership Trends for Wal-Mart Stores.

Wal-Mart Stores' stock was sold by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter, including State Street Corp, Schroder Investment Management Group, BlackRock Inc., Karp Capital Management Corp, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company , Bank of New York Mellon Corp, American Century Companies Inc. and Acadian Asset Management LLC. Company insiders that have sold Wal-Mart Stores stock in the last year include Alice L Walton, C Douglas Mcmillon, David Cheesewright, David Chojnowski, Jacqueline P Canney, Jeffrey J Gearhart, Jim C Walton, Rosalind G Brewer and S Robson Walton. View Insider Buying and Selling for Wal-Mart Stores.

Wal-Mart Stores' stock was bought by a variety of institutional investors in the last quarter, including FMR LLC, Alliancebernstein L.P., Parametric Portfolio Associates LLC, Neuberger Berman Group LLC, Fred Alger Management Inc., State of Tennessee Treasury Department, UBS Asset Management Americas Inc. and Janus Henderson Group PLC. View Insider Buying and Selling for Wal-Mart Stores.

Shares of Wal-Mart Stores can be purchased through any online brokerage account. Popular online brokerages include Vanguard Brokerage Services, TD Ameritrade, E*TRADE, Scottrade, Fidelity and Charles Schwab.

One share of Wal-Mart Stores stock can currently be purchased for approximately $79.53.