By The Huffington Post News Editors
The Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) executive who called the retailer’s February sales a “total disaster” in an internal e-mail obtained and reported by Bloomberg News has left the company.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
By Anders Bylund, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
The market is supposed to be a hyper-efficient weighing machine in the long run, but that’s not always the case. Those mismatches between market value and business performance often create outsize investing opportunities.
For an example of this, take a look at retail giant Wal-Mart Stores . The stock price is struggling to keep up with Wal-Mart’s peers on the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the last decade, even if you reinvested every dividend check along the way:
But you can’t blame Wal-Mart’s business for any of this market lag. Over this period, the store chain has doubled revenue while nearly tripling cash flow and earnings. Keep in mind that the Waltons have been battling the law of large numbers throughout this decade. It’s not easy to double a $230 billion top line, you know. Investors should expect more than a 56% total return for this fantastic performance.
WMT EPS Diluted TTM data by YCharts.
The master of low costs and high efficiency thrives in challenging markets, as you can see in the cash flow spike during the 2008 recession. Free cash flow keeps growing at a double-digit clip every year, so you can’t even claim that Wal-Mart shares should be cheap due to dying growth.
WMT P/E Ratio TTM data by YCharts.
All things considered, Wal-Mart shares look spring-loaded at current prices.
If you’re on the lookout for high-yielding stocks, The Motley Fool has compiled a special free report outlining our nine top dependable dividend-paying stocks, including a detailed discussion of Wal-Mart. It’s called “Secure Your Future With 9 Rock-Solid Dividend Stocks.” You can access your copy today at no cost! Just click here.
The article Is Wal-Mart Undervalued Today? originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Anders Bylund holds no position in any company mentioned. Check out Anders’ bio and holdings or follow him on Twitter and Google+.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Reuters
Filed under: Amazon.com, Retail, Internet, Wal-Mart, Shopping Trends
By Alistair Barr and Jessica Wohl
SAN FRANCISCO — Walmart is considering a radical plan to have store customers deliver packages to online buyers, a new twist on speedier delivery services that the company hopes will enable it to better compete with Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN).
Tapping customers to deliver goods would put the world’s largest retailer squarely in middle of a new phenomenon sometimes known as “crowd-sourcing,” or the “sharing economy.”
A plethora of start-ups now help people make money by renting out a spare room, a car, or even a cocktail dress, and Walmart would in effect be inviting people to rent out space in their vehicle and their willingness to deliver packages to others.
Such an effort would, however, face numerous legal, regulatory and privacy obstacles, and Walmart executives said it was at an early planning stage.
Walmart Stores Inc. (WMT) is making a big push to ship online orders directly from stores, hoping to cut transportation costs and gain an edge over Amazon and other online retailers, which have no physical store locations. Walmart does this at 25 stores currently, but plans to double that to 50 this year and could expand the program to hundreds of stores in the future.
Walmart currently uses carriers such as FedEx Corp. (FDX) for delivery from stores — or, in the case of a same-day delivery service called Walmart To Go that is being tested in five metro areas, its own delivery trucks.
“I see a path to where this is crowd-sourced,” Joel Anderson, chief executive of Walmart.com in the U.S., said in a recent interview with Reuters.
Walmart has millions of customers visiting its stores each week. Some of these shoppers could tell the retailer where they live and sign up to drop off packages for online customers who live on their route back home, Anderson explained.
Walmart would offer a discount on the customers’ shopping bill, effectively covering the cost of their gas in return for the delivery of packages, he added.
“This is at the brain-storming stage, but it’s possible in a year or two,” said Jeff McAllister, senior vice president of Walmart U.S. innovations.
Indeed, the likelihood of this being broadly adopted across the company’s network of more than 4,000 stores in the U.S. is low, according to Matt Nemer, a retail analyst at Wells Fargo Securities.
“I’m sure it will be a test in some stores,” he added. “But they may only keep it for metro markets and for higher-priced items.”
Legal Boundaries
Start-ups such as TaskRabbit and Fiverr already let individuals rent out their time and expertise to companies and people looking for small jobs to be completed.
Zipments was founded in 2010 as a crowd-sourced delivery network that allowed …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Filed under: Retail, International Trade, Wal-Mart, Scandals and Lawsuits, Stocks
NEW YORK — The world’s biggest retailer, Walmart, says it is likely that it will incur a loss from bribery probes into its operations in Mexico and other countries.
Walmart Stores Inc. (WMT) has been dealing with allegations that surfaced last April that it failed to notify law enforcement that company officials authorized millions of dollars in payments in Mexico to speed up getting building permits and gain other favors. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act forbids American companies from bribing foreign officials.
The company has launched its own investigation and is working with government officials in the U.S. and Mexico. In November, the retailer said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it was looking into potential U.S. bribery law violations in Brazil, China and India.
In another filing Tuesday with the SEC, Walmart Stores said that it expects to incur costs above the $157 million it spent on the probes in fiscal 2013 due to its ongoing review and other investigations as well as shareholder lawsuits.
It also said it is “probable” that it will incur a loss from the matters, but didn’t give an estimate on how much.
“Given the on-going nature and complexity of the review, inquiries and investigations, we cannot reasonably estimate any loss or range of loss that may arise from these matters,” the Benton, Ark.-based Walmart said in the filing.
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By The Huffington Post News Editors
Margaret Hancock has long considered the local Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) superstore her one- stop shopping destination. No longer.
By Anders Bylund, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
The wealth-building power of compound interest will never cease to amaze me. It’s a story of patience and attention to detail, where small, short-term differences add up to massive divergence over decades. And in the end, the biggest winners don’t always deliver the fattest share-price returns.
Retail giant Wal-Mart has traded largely sideways for more than a decade. But the company never stopped boosting its dividends on an annual basis, so the effective yield is going places:
WMT Dividend data by YCharts.
Wal-Mart has ascended from an insignificant yield of less than 1% to a meaty 2.6% in just a few years. Without these payouts, the stock would barely have beaten its peers on the Dow Jones Industrial Average , but reinvested dividends helped shareholders more than double the Dow’s long-term returns.
The company’s profit margins may be thin, but they are remarkably consistent and always positive. Many major retailers are losing their grip on long-term profits right now and would sell their souls for a taste of Wal-Mart’s stability.
Best Buy is giving up on the big-box store concept that Wal-Mart perfected and is battling an onslaught of online retailers in the crucial electronics segment. J.C. Penney saw its mall-cap concept falter and brought in a retail superstar to right the ship, but none of new CEO Ron Johnson’s turnaround plans have borne fruit. And through it all, Wal-Mart just keeps ticking along with net margins between 4% and 5%. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.
WMT Profit Margin Quarterly data by YCharts.
When your company pulls in some of the world’s largest annual revenues, it doesn’t take much of a margin to create massive profits and power juicy dividends. And that’s exactly what the Waltons are doing.
WMT Dividend data by YCharts.
Is Best Buy true to its name?
The brick-and-mortar versus e-commerce battle wages on, with Best Buy caught in the middle. After what might have been its most tumultuous year in history, there are now even more unanswered questions about the future for the big-box electronics retailer. How will new leadership perform? Will old leadership take the company private? Will a smaller store format work out for both the company and its brave investors? Should you be one such brave investor? To help answer all these questions, The Motley Fool has released a new premium research report detailing the opportunities — and the risks — in store for Best Buy. Simply click here now to claim your comprehensive report today.
Filed under: Investing
24/7 Wall St. has seen many analyst upgrades and downgrades this Wednesday, but there are several calls which really stand out in key companies.
Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) was reiterated with a “Buy” rating and with a $100 price target at BofA Merrill Lynch based partly upon Dreamliner tests resuming. It was also upgraded to Hold from Underweight at BB&T and Stifel Nicolaus maintained a “Buy” rating and raised its target to $100 from $85 this morning.
Walgreen Co. (NYSE: WAG) was raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) was reiterated as “Buy” but what stood out here was the firm’s $85 price target at BofA Merrill Lynch.
Yum! Brands INc. (NYSE: YUM) was also maintained as Outperform and its target price was raised by $3 to $70 at Credit SUisse based upon the bleeding in China finally letting up.
Zoetis Inc. (NYSE: ZTS) was started in coverage by the major brokerage firms now that the quiet period has ended: started as Neutral at BofA/Merrill Lynch; started as Neutral at Goldman Sachs; started as Buy at Jefferies; started as Overweight at JPMorgan; started as Buy at Deutsche Bank.
by Jon C. Ogg at 247wallst.com
Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire
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By IBTimes
Filed under: CEOs, Entrepreneurs, People
By Angelo Young
The Forbes magazine annual list of the world’s billionaires has always been scant of women, but 35 more women did join this year’s record-length list of 1,426 global über-rich. They now number 138, or 9.7 percent of the total. Last year, they represented 8.5 percent of the list of 1,226 billionaires.
The world’s richest women continue to be heiresses or inheritors of wealth, but every year there appear women who acquired their fortunes largely on their own.
The women in the top 40 are regulars to the list. They include Liliane Bettencourt of the L’Oreal clan, two Waltons — relatives of Walmart Stores, Inc. (WMT) founder Sam Walton — the widow Iris Fontbona of the Chilean copper mining giant Antofagasta, Australian mining magnate Georgina Rinehart and Jacqueline Mars of the candy giant Mars, Inc.; the latter two inherited their fortunes and responsibilities when their fathers passed away.
But three women joined the club this year without the help of a family empire or a massive inheritance. These three entrepreneurs join a small sub-set inside Forbes annual list of self-made women.
Take a look at the Forbes list of self-made women billionaires:
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Photo Credit: Kevork Djansezian, Getty Images
Looking today at week-over-week shares outstanding changes among the universe of ETFs covered at ETF Channel, one standout is the Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF (AMEX: VYM) where we have detected an approximate $31.9 million dollar inflow — that’s a 0.6% increase week over week in outstanding units (from 93,093,130 to 93,693,428). Among the largest underlying components of VYM, in trading today Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is up about 1%, Coca-Cola Co (NYSE: KO) is off about 0.2%, and Philip Morris International Inc (NYSE: PM) is lower by about 0.4%. For a complete list of holdings, visit the VYM Holdings page » …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Markets
By MarketNewsVideo Teleflex (TFX) maintained its quarterly dividend of 34 cents per share. The dividend is payable March 15, 2013 to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 5, 2013. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Markets
In trading on Friday, shares of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) crossed below their 200 day moving average of $70.27, changing hands as low as $69.18 per share. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. shares are currently trading down about 2.2% on the day. The chart below shows the one year performance of WMT shares, versus its 200 day moving average: …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Markets
