Posted on 02/18/2010 5:19:39 AM PST by STONEWALLS
Wal-Mart Stores beat profit expectations Thursday but the company's revenue was slightly below forecast for its fiscal fourth quarter and issued cautious guidance for its fiscal first quarter.
The company said it earned $1.17 a share in the three months ended January, up from $1.03 a share in the same quarter a year ago.
That was higher than the $1.12 a share forecast by analysis.
But revenue came in at $113.65 billion, shy of estimates of $114.35 billion.
For the fiscal first quarter, the company predicts a profit of 81 to 85 cents a share. Analysts are currently forecasting a profit of 85 cents a share for the period.
For fiscal 2011, Wal-Mart expects to earn $3.90 to $4.00 a share, in line with expectations of $3.97 a share.
Shares of Wal-Mart fell more than 1 percent in before-hours trading.
Total US same-store sales, including Sam's Club, fell 1.6 percent. Wal-Mart's US same-store sales excluding Sam's Club fell 2 percent.
It is as I’ve been saying: The US consumer has no wage growth, now has their credit cut off, and they have to start saving very aggressively for retirement.
The expectation that the US consumer will consume us back to economic prosperity is simply a broken notion now. WMT is just one place where we’re going to see this trend.
well i for one stopped shopping walmart awhile back after watching them change their pkg to a cheaper generic version and raising the prices on generic items in some cases over 100%...i don’t feel sorry for them...i am sure more people have noticed this and are shopping for more bargins elsewhere....
On some things, WMT is indeed higher priced that other places as I have found. Do not assume WMT is always the lowest price.
Exactly - if anything given they are lower cost I would expect them to be going up since people are trading down.
While I suppose it could mean people are starting to trade back up and the economy is starting to “recover”, the more likely driver (given current unemployment) is everyone has cut to the bone and is purchasing only the absolute necessities.
Watched CNBC this morning and they were claiming that this is good news because this means consumers are moving up to more upscale retailers like Target and CostCo.... LOL
I stopped too, after doing an ounce for ounce survey of the items I buy most between Walmart and Aldi’s. Aldi’s beats them on almost every item.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/538971/Walmart%20VS%20Aldis%20PDF.pdf
These prices are comparing my two closest stores. Prices per store vary, but this is my personal experience.
I would imagine that WalMart picked up a bunch of new customers in 2009, but the consumers are probably shifting their buying. The are doing less “want to” buying and more “need to” buying. Plus a lot of folks are looking down the road to April 15 on the way with a whole lot of unpredictability in the air.
we moved all our shopping to aldi’s also...the meats are better and the prices are great....i hope they stay just like they are.....
Exactly! Our WalMart Supercenter remodeled their store a year or so ago. They widened the aisles and put down new flooring and beefed up the pharmacy. In order to make the aisles wider without adding square footage, they dropped over 20,000 items from the shelves. Among the items dropped were some very popular items. Kraft spagetti dinners, muffin mixes, and Half and Half. But they kept all the lowfat stuff like lowfat soy milk etc. I know some people use that stuff but they have dropped a lot of stuff that a lot of people use in order to keep stuff that only a few people use. It seems they are dissing their regular customers to go with the green vegan health nut movement. I am going to shop elsewhere from now on. I made that decision yesterday after spending 204.00 on groceries and coming out with very little.
That’s balderdash; well over 50% of chronic Walmart shoppers don’t have sufficient imagination to shop anywhere else. If you don’t believe me, check out peopleofwalmart.com.
Of course, after you do, you’ll be extremely thankful there is a Walmart for these people to go to.
The warehouse stores are making a comeback with lower pricing of the larger quantity packaging.
there was an atricle posted a couple days ago about how walmart was cutting alot of the brand names items and going with more generic items also to cut their costs...i suggest if you have an aldis nearby you try them...they carry generic brands but very good quality, the meats and veggies are fresh and better than walmart imo....and you will be very surprised at how much you get for your dollar....walmart for the most part has lost me as a customer after catching on to the games they have started playing with prices....
>”It seems they are dissing their regular customers to go with the green vegan health nut movement.”
Agreed. The Supercenter at Cloquet Mn is the same thing. To top it all off, management has let go of a lot of people and so the remaining are left to work twice as hard. That coupled with the fact the store no longer gives two days off in a row for the workers, well you can see where thats going. (I think its a shame people who bust their butt dont get enough time off to do things with their family or simply rest up)
I’ll tell you straight up. If the Union came in right now to the store in Cloquet, and asked people, Is your company taking care of you, the answer would be a RESOUNDING NO! Might be the best thing, if you ask me. Let the company know that you cant treat workers like slaves.
My wife and I shopped the local Aldis once. The selection is very limited, the generics we bought were terrible quality, and produce was spotty at best. Do you just buy staples there and supplement it with a trip to a different grocery store?? ...magritte
I agree. The employees at our WalMart store are very unhappy with the way they are treated. One of my friends who worked there was refused time off when her mother died. She was allowed half a day off for the funeral. When she took 2 days off, they fired her. This happens all the time. Another employee, an 18 yr old girl, had a gun safe fall off a palet and severely injure her face. She was a beautiful girl who was going to modeling school. She had a promising career as a model till this happened. Now her face is disfigured and partially paralyzed. WalMart got by with paying her 7000.00.
My experience as well.
The last time I was in Aldi's they had advertised all milk, 2%, whole, skim at $1.29 per gal, limit 4 gal. per customer. I went in early and all they had on their shelves was skim. I wouldn't touch that pretend milk, so I looked around a bit and left without buying a single item.
Wal-Mart’s data center, if I’m not mistaken, is second only to NASA in terms of complexity and the ability to run sales forecasts and order inventory. It literally knows, for instance, that if a hurricane hits North Carolina, people buy x% more Strawberry pop-tarts and uses weather patterns to pre-ordre the merchandise and make sure it’s on store shelves before the storm hits. This has been written about and covered on television for years.
If they kept soy milk on the shelves over Kraft spaghetti dinners, it wasn’t to make a statement. It was because soy milk generated far higher sales and profits than the Kraft dinners. Nothing Wal-Mart does is by accident. For all their faults, they are ruthlessly efficient at delivering goods based on actual purchasing patterns.
our aldis is fairly new and the quality on the genics i have found to be very good...we have also bought our meats there and have no complaints...on the other hand i would never buy my meats at walmart...they always looked terrible....
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