Walmart (NYSE:WMT) Posts Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.02 EPS

Walmart (NYSE:WMT) announced its earnings results on Thursday. The retailer reported $0.67 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.65 by $0.02, RTT News reports. The company had revenue of $169.30 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $168.56 billion. Walmart had a net margin of 2.88% and a return on equity of 21.57%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.61 earnings per share.

Walmart Stock Performance

WMT opened at $73.45 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48, a quick ratio of 0.23 and a current ratio of 0.80. The stock has a market capitalization of $590.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.39, a PEG ratio of 3.95 and a beta of 0.50. The company has a fifty day moving average of $68.86 and a 200 day moving average of $63.37. Walmart has a fifty-two week low of $49.85 and a fifty-two week high of $74.44.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, major shareholder Alice L. Walton sold 1,132,123 shares of Walmart stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $65.02, for a total value of $73,610,637.46. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 647,371,888 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $42,092,120,157.76. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, major shareholder Alice L. Walton sold 1,132,123 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $65.02, for a total transaction of $73,610,637.46. Following the sale, the insider now owns 647,371,888 shares in the company, valued at approximately $42,092,120,157.76. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Timothy Patrick Flynn sold 30,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.82, for a total transaction of $1,944,600.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 144,807 shares in the company, valued at $9,386,389.74. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 11,000,613 shares of company stock worth $725,932,010 in the last 90 days. 45.58% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently weighed in on WMT. Tigress Financial increased their price target on shares of Walmart from $75.00 to $86.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Piper Sandler reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $83.00 price objective (up previously from $81.00) on shares of Walmart in a research note on Friday. HSBC boosted their target price on Walmart from $70.00 to $81.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 11th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of Walmart from $74.00 to $80.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday. Finally, Evercore ISI lifted their target price on shares of Walmart from $74.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-six have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Walmart currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $77.79.

About Walmart

Walmart Inc engages in the operation of retail, wholesale, other units, and eCommerce worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Walmart U.S., Walmart International, and Sam's Club. It operates supercenters, supermarkets, hypermarkets, warehouse clubs, cash and carry stores, and discount stores under Walmart and Walmart Neighborhood Market brands; membership-only warehouse clubs; ecommerce websites, such as walmart.com.mx, walmart.ca, flipkart.com, PhonePe and other sites; and mobile commerce applications.