Walmart (WMT) Competitors

Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST) and Walmart (NYSE:WMT) are both large-cap retail/wholesale companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability, risk, community ranking, dividends, media sentiment, institutional ownership and valuation.

Do institutionals and insiders hold more shares of COST or WMT?

68.5% of Costco Wholesale shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 26.8% of Walmart shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.2% of Costco Wholesale shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 45.6% of Walmart shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Which has stronger earnings and valuation, COST or WMT?

Walmart has higher revenue and earnings than Costco Wholesale. Walmart is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Costco Wholesale, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Costco Wholesale	$268.78B	1.64	$7.37B	$17.63	56.54
Walmart	$685.09B	1.12	$15.51B	$2.34	40.90

Is COST or WMT a better dividend stock?

Costco Wholesale pays an annual dividend of $5.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. Walmart pays an annual dividend of $0.94 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.0%. Costco Wholesale pays out 29.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Walmart pays out 40.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Costco Wholesale has increased its dividend for 22 consecutive years and Walmart has increased its dividend for 53 consecutive years. Walmart is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Which has more volatility & risk, COST or WMT?

Costco Wholesale has a beta of 1, suggesting that its stock price has a similar volatility profile to the S&P 500.Comparatively, Walmart has a beta of 0.69, suggesting that its stock price is 31% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Does the MarketBeat Community favor COST or WMT?

Costco Wholesale received 271 more outperform votes than Walmart when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 71.90% of users gave Costco Wholesale an outperform vote while only 62.17% of users gave Walmart an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Costco Wholesale	Outperform Votes 1873 71.90%	Underperform Votes 732 28.10%
Walmart	Outperform Votes 1602 62.17%	Underperform Votes 975 37.83%

Do analysts prefer COST or WMT?

Costco Wholesale currently has a consensus price target of $1,035.32, suggesting a potential upside of 3.87%. Walmart has a consensus price target of $106.50, suggesting a potential upside of 11.28%. Given Walmart's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Walmart is more favorable than Costco Wholesale.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Costco Wholesale	0 Sell rating(s)	9 Hold rating(s)	20 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.69
Walmart	0 Sell rating(s)	2 Hold rating(s)	29 Buy rating(s)	1 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.97

Is COST or WMT more profitable?

Costco Wholesale has a net margin of 2.93% compared to Walmart's net margin of 2.85%. Costco Wholesale's return on equity of 32.31% beat Walmart's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Costco Wholesale	2.93%	32.31%	10.55%
Walmart	2.85%	21.87%	7.84%

Does the media refer more to COST or WMT?

In the previous week, Costco Wholesale had 11 more articles in the media than Walmart. MarketBeat recorded 150 mentions for Costco Wholesale and 139 mentions for Walmart. Walmart's average media sentiment score of 1.11 beat Costco Wholesale's score of 1.08 indicating that Walmart is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Costco Wholesale	98 Very Positive mention(s)	22 Positive mention(s)	21 Neutral mention(s)	5 Negative mention(s)	1 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Walmart	91 Very Positive mention(s)	23 Positive mention(s)	18 Neutral mention(s)	3 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Summary

Costco Wholesale beats Walmart on 12 of the 22 factors compared between the two stocks.