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.The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.5 Stocks Set to DoubleEach was handpicked by a Zacks expert as the #1 favorite stock to gain +100% or more in 2024. While not all picks can be winners, previous recommendations have soared +143.0%, +175.9%, +498.3% and +673.0%.Most of the stocks in this report are flying under Wall Street radar, which provides a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor.Today, See These 5 Potential Home Runs >>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Walmart Inc. (WMT): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks