Walmart Stores Inc. (WMT, Financial) will release its financial figures for the third quarter of fiscal 2018 before the New York Stock Exchange opens Nov. 16.
The U.S. global retail company is expected by the average analyst to have closed the third quarter of fiscal 2018 reporting an EPS of 97 cents. This is about flat compared to the prior fiscal-year quarter when Walmart closed with an EPS of 98 cents.
Source: Yahoo Finance
Thirty analysts were surveyed on Walmart’s earnings for the third quarter of fiscal 2018. Their estimates ranged between a low of 93 cents and a high of $1.
Analysts expect that earnings will be backed by quarterly revenues of $120.99 billion. This figure is a mean of 21 estimates that range from $118.86 billion to $122.98 billion.
The average analyst expects 2.40% growth in the company’s revenues that, although they were stable on a yearly basis over the last four fiscal years, the profit margin went on declining from a 3.40% rate in full fiscal 2014 to a 2.80% rate in full fiscal 2017. This downtrending in Walmart’s net profit margin was essentially a consequence of either flat or slim increases in the company’s yearly sales and of increasing selling, general and administrative expenses. Walmart’s net income also continued to decline over the same span.
The gross margin, instead, slightly improved from a 24.80% rate in full fiscal 2014 to a 25.60% rate in full fiscal 2017. This was mainly due to a decrease in those costs that are directly associated with sales.
GuruFocus assigns Walmart’s business a profitability and growth rating of 7 out of 10.
From its operations, the retail giant has generated a cash flow of $27.96 billion over the last 12 trading months’ time frames and approximately 56% of it or $15.62 billion has been used by Walmart to pay dividends to its shareholders and make investments for business growth purposes.
Walmart’s forward annual dividend is $2.04. The company distributes dividends to its shareholders through quarterly payments of 51 cents for a yield of 2.31% versus a Standard & Poor's 500 current dividend yield of 1.87%.
The company has approximately $6.5 billion cash on hand as of the previous quarter and total debt of almost $48 billion. The debt to equity is 60.72% versus an industry average of 73.17%.
GuruFocus assigns Walmart a financial strength rating of 6 out of 10.
Walmart is trading at $90.92 per share versus an average target price of $88.54 and with a market capitalization of $271.6 billion.
Walmart has a price-book (P/B) ratio of 3.56 versus an industry median of 1.85, a price-earnings (P/E) ratio of 21.86 versus an industry median of 19.33 and a price-sales (P/S) ratio of 0.57 versus an industry median of 0.49.
Walmart is uptrending and is trading above the 50 and 200 simple moving average lines:
It is trading only 0.84% below its 52-week high of $91.69 per share while the 52-week low price is $65.28 per share.
According to the chart of Peter Lynch, Walmart is overvalued by the stock market at the moment since the stock is trading above the earnings line that is updated with the company’s figures on earnings until the second quarter of fiscal 2018:
Walmart has a recommendation rating of 2.4 out of 5.
Disclosure: I have no position in Walmart.
