Wal-Mart Conference Call Highlights

Wal-Mart WMT reported its second quarter earnings. Shares of the company are neutral.

Below are some key executive takeaways from its conference call:

• I'm pleased that Walmart delivered solid earnings per share of $1.21 well within our guidance range, and our consolidated net sales increased more than $3.2 billion over last year to $119.3 billion.
• Stronger sales in the U.S. businesses would have helped our profit performance in the quarter.
• Walmart International turned in a solid performance with operating income up over 9 percent.
• During the quarter, consolidated net sales increased more than $3.2 billion with Walmart U.S. contributing $1.9 billion of the increase.

International:

• As a reminder, at Walmart International, we provide resulting commentary on primarily our five largest markets, all of which have revenue in excess of $10 billion in fiscal 2014.
• As I mentioned last quarter, the net gain from the sale of our Vips restaurant business in Mexico.
• I'm especially encouraged by the healthy sales improvements in some of our largest markets.
• Our Walmart U.S. business added approximately $1.9 billion in net sales and delivered a flat comp.
• I'm really pleased that sales continued to be robust, growing approximately 24 percent this quarter.
• We saw double-digit e-commerce growth from our foremost important markets, the U.S., U.K., China and Brazil.
• Walmart International delivered a solid performance with positive comp sales and all but one market and strong operating income.

Guidance:

• As a result, our fiscal 2015 earnings per share now assumes $0.05 to $0.07 of incremental investment versus our prior guidance of $0.02 to $0.04.
• Slightly revising her e-commerce sales growth to 25 percent for this year, we continue to be very encouraged by the progress we are making on our strategic goals.
• Taking all of these factors into account we are forecasting earnings-per-share for the full year to range between $4.90 and $5.15 per share versus our prior guidance of $5.10 to $5.45.
• This assumes third-quarter EPS to range between $1.10 and $1.20 versus $1.14 last year.