In a sign that high inflation won’t keep shoppers away from the stores, Walmart announced in its quarterly earnings report on Tuesday that sales grew more than 8%, beating analyst forecasts.
For the fiscal second quarter that ended July 31, Walmart reported $152.86 billion in in revenue, above the $150.81 billion expected by Refinitiv consensus estimates. Earnings per share was $1.77 adjusted, vs. $1.62 expected. Walmart’s net income for the quarter rose to $5.15 billion, or $1.88 per share, compared with $4.28 billion, or $1.52 per share from a year earlier.
Same-store sales for Walmart U.S. grew 6.5% in the second quarter, excluding fuel, compared with the same period a year ago. This was above the 5.9% growth expected from analysts, according to StreetAccount.
Last month, Walmart said that consumers were buying less high-margin discretionary merchandise like apparel and spending more on necessities. The retail giant expects those spending patterns to persist.
“We expect inflation to continue to influence the choices that families make and we’re adjusting to that reality so we can help them more,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said on a conference call to analysts.
Walmart is currently a holding in the Avantis U.S. Large Cap Value ETF (AVLV), an actively managed portfolio of U.S. large-cap value companies across market sectors and industry groups deemed highly profitable by the fund manager.
Per its FactSet Analyst Insight Report, AVLV’s portfolio is curated using fundamental screens, such as shares outstanding, cash flow, revenue, expenses, and price-to-book value. Avantis aims to achieve the benefits correlated with indexing, including diversification, low turnover, and transparency of exposure, but with the ability to add value by implementing an active investment strategy with current prices as the basis and the Russell 1000 Value Index as a benchmark.
Trade-offs between expected returns and taxes or trade costs may also be considered to gain trading efficiencies and avoid risk.
AVLV has an expense ratio of 0.15%.
For more news, information, and strategy, visit the Core Strategies Channel.
