Retail behemoth Walmart (NYSE: WMT) will be reporting earnings tomorrow morning. Here’s what to look for.
Walmart beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 1.2% last quarter, reporting revenues of $169.3 billion, up 4.8% year on year. It was a decent quarter for the company, with revenue and EPS exceeding expectations.
Is Walmart a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.
This quarter, analysts are expecting Walmart’s revenue to grow 3.6% year on year to $166.6 billion, slowing from the 5.2% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.53 per share.
Heading into earnings, analysts covering the company have grown increasingly bullish with revenue estimates seeing 8 upward revisions over the last 30 days (we track 20 analysts). Walmart has a history of exceeding Wall Street’s expectations, beating revenue estimates every single time over the past two years by 2.4% on average.
Looking at Walmart’s peers in the non-discretionary retail segment, some have already reported their Q3 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Sprouts delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 13.6%, beating analysts’ expectations by 3.7%, and Grocery Outlet reported revenues up 10.4%, in line with consensus estimates. Sprouts traded up 8% following the results while Grocery Outlet was also up 10.6%.
Read our full analysis of Sprouts’s results here and Grocery Outlet’s results here.
Investors in the non-discretionary retail segment have had steady hands going into earnings, with share prices flat over the last month. Walmart is up 4.5% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $86.57 (compared to the current share price of $84.44).
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