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Should Investors Buy the Dip in Alibaba or Walmart's Stock After Earnings?

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The dip in Alibaba (BABA - Free Report)  and Walmart‘s (WMT - Free Report)  stock may be catching investors' attention after both companies reported their quarterly results on Thursday.

Alibaba and Walmart’s stock ended today’s trading session down 8% and 9% respectively but let’s review their quarterly reports and current valuations to see if the drops are a buying opportunity.  

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Alibaba’s Q2 Review

There is a case that today’s selloff in Alibaba shares was overdone as it was mostly attributed to the news that the e-commerce behemoth would not spin off its Cloud Intelligence Group into a separate IPO as many investors have anticipated.

Still, Alibaba topped its fiscal second quarter earnings expectations with EPS at $2.14 per share and 1% above the Zacks Consensus despite sales of $30.81 billion slightly missing estimates of $31 billion. Year over year, Q2 earnings rose 17% with sales rising 6% from the comparative quarter. Notably, Alibaba has now surpassed earnings expectations for eight consecutive quarters after today’s EPS surprise.

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Walmart’s Q3 Review

Following Target's (TGT - Free Report)  much better-than-expected third quarter earnings report on Wednesday, investors were underwhelmed with Walmart’s Q3 results. Walmart was able to reach its Q3 earnings expectations of $1.53.per share but this was not as eye-popping as Target’s 42% EPS surprise on earnings of $2.10 a share.

However, Walmart was able to beat top-line estimates in contrast to its omnichannel competitor Target. Walmart’s Q3 sales of $160.8 billion slightly surpassed estimates of $159.48 billion. Compared to the prior year quarter, Walmart’s Q3 earnings rose 3% with sales up 5% but underwhelming guidance for Q4 sales growth of 5%-5.5% fueled the selloff in WMT shares.

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Current Valuations

Alibaba’s stock has lost some of the mojo and excitement in years past but makes a strong case for being undervalued after Thursday’s selloff. Currently at a 9.8X forward earnings multiple Alibaba’s stock trades at a significant discount to the Zacks Internet-Commerce Markets' 32.8X and the S&P 500’s 19.7X. More intriguing is that Alibaba’s stock trades well below its historical high of 66.6X and at a 73% discount to the median of 36.2X.

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As for Walmart, its stock trades at 26.3X forward earnings which is near the Zacks Retail-Supermarkets' 23.8X and not at a stretched premium to the benchmark. Walmart’s stock also trades below its own decade-long high of 28.1X but above the median of 20.2X.

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Takeaway

Experiencing their largest percentage declines in over a year, buying the dip in Alibaba and Walmart’s stock is certainly tempting with reasonable valuations as the busy holiday season approaches. For now, both stocks land a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) as the upside in Alibaba and Walmart shares may largely depend on the trend of earnings estimate revisions in the following weeks.  


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