Walmart (WMT) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: Here’s Why

Walmart (WMT) ended the recent trading session at $97.29, demonstrating a -0.11% swing from the preceding day’s closing price. The stock’s performance was behind the S&P 500’s daily gain of 0.92%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.31%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 2.03%.

The world’s largest retailer’s shares have seen an increase of 7.54% over the last month, surpassing the Retail-Wholesale sector’s gain of 4.85% and the S&P 500’s gain of 0.81%.

The investment community will be closely monitoring the performance of Walmart in its forthcoming earnings report. The company is scheduled to release its earnings on February 20, 2025. In that report, analysts expect Walmart to post earnings of $0.64 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 6.67%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $179.28 billion, up 3.4% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $2.48 per share and revenue of $679.45 billion, which would represent changes of +11.71% and +4.83%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Walmart. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company’s business and profitability.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Over the past month, there’s been a 0.05% rise in the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate. Right now, Walmart possesses a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

With respect to valuation, Walmart is currently being traded at a Forward P/E ratio of 39.35. This indicates a premium in contrast to its industry’s Forward P/E of 13.55.

One should further note that WMT currently holds a PEG ratio of 4.46. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company’s expected earnings growth rate into account. The Retail – Supermarkets was holding an average PEG ratio of 2.32 at yesterday’s closing price.

The Retail – Supermarkets industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. At present, this industry carries a Zacks Industry Rank of 213, placing it within the bottom 16% of over 250 industries.

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