Walmart Beats, Best Buy Disappoints

Two big-box retailers, Wal-Mart Stores Inc WMT and Best Buy Co Inc BBY, reported Thursday their respective earnings results, which could have implications beyond the retail sector, particularly after Wall Street punished Target Corporation TGT Wednesday.

Walmart

• Walmart earned $1.00 per share on revenue of $123.2 billion in the third quarter; Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to earn 97 cents per share on revenue of $121 billion.
• Operating income fell from $5.119 billion a year ago to $4.764 billion
• U.S. comp sales rose 2.7 percent while comp traffic rose 1.5 percent.
• Online net sales and GMV rose 50 percent and 54 percent, respectively.
• Free cash flow totaled $10.152 billion in the quarter.
• Walmart returned $3.735 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.
• Management revised its fiscal 2018 EPS guidance from a range of $4.30-$4.40 to a new range of $4.38-$4.46.

Shares of Walmart gained more than 4 percent to $93.86, which is above the 52-week high of $91.98.

Best Buy

• Best Buy earned 78 cents per share in the third quarter on revenue of $9.32 billion; Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to earn 78 cents per share on revenue of $9.36 billion.
• Enterprise comparable sales rose 4.4 percent in the quarter, marking an acceleration from 1.8 percent a year ago.
• Domestic comparable online sales rose 22.3 percent.
• Operating income rose from $312 million a year ago to $350 million.
• Management updated its fiscal 2018 enterprise sales growth from around 4 percent to a range of 4-4.8 percent.
• Management also guided its fourth quarter EPS to a range of $1.89-$1.99 versus expectations of $2.03 per share.

Shares of Best Buy were trading lower by around 2 percent at $56.20.

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