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Walmart (WMT) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Walmart (WMT - Free Report) closed at $94.70, marking a +1.48% move from the previous day. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.04% loss on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.15%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.67%.

Coming into today, shares of the world's largest retailer had lost 3.26% in the past month. In that same time, the Retail-Wholesale sector lost 3.67%, while the S&P 500 gained 0.02%.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from WMT as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be November 15, 2018. In that report, analysts expect WMT to post earnings of $1.03 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 3%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $124.18 billion, up 0.81% from the prior-year quarter.

WMT's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $4.81 per share and revenue of $513.64 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +8.82% and +2.66%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for WMT should also be noted by investors. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.15% higher. WMT is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Looking at its valuation, WMT is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 19.42. This valuation marks a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 16.27.

We can also see that WMT currently has a PEG ratio of 3.28. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. The Retail - Supermarkets was holding an average PEG ratio of 2.21 at yesterday's closing price.

The Retail - Supermarkets industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 189, putting it in the bottom 26% of all 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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