Years ago I worked as executive editor of a small, family owned publishing house. I learned a lot there from the owner who, while he did not match his financial success, did share what I think of as many of the good qualities of Sam Walton. I remember a conversation we had once regarding Wall […]

The business world is all abuzz over Walmart’s announcement of a two-day shipping subscription service targeted directly at Amazon’s Prime service. I don’t like buying from Amazon anymore than I do from Walmart for a variety of reasons, but the main reason focuses on the company’s use of ginormous warehouses in obscure communities where workers […]

Last week I noted that for the first time in decades, Walmart’s revenue failed to keep the Bentonvile Behemoth at the top of the retail food chain. Analysts are spinning their own take on the event and Daniel Jennings, opining in Why Aren’t Low Prices Helping Wal-Mart’s Revenues? for Seeking Alpha offers this long list: […]

Given the news last week regarding Walmart annual sales (lack of) growth, a reasonable person might expect that investors would look elsewhere growth opportunities. Four news items today, however, shine light on how Wall Street makes money for itself: by buying and selling the same stocks. First up is Gould Asset Management which: reduced its […]

While reading this morning I found Brian Feroldi over at The Motley Fool. I expected a follow-on this week’s news that Walmart failed to post annual sales growth for the first time since the company went public 45 years ago. That wasn’t what I found however in 3 Dividend Aristocrats We Will Never Buy. Feroldi […]

Shelly Banjo reporting in Wal-Mart’s first-ever sales drop marks the end of an era for Bloomberg News, writes: For the first time ever—or at least since the company went public some 45 years ago—Wal-Mart’s revenues shrank from the year before, according to its annual financial filing released Wednesday. Wal-Mart is clearly having trouble adapting its […]

Oh those poor, poor Waltons. Writing in In biggest ever drop, Walmart loses over $20 bn for Dispatch Times, Newsmedia laments: [Walmart] slid further on Thursday. €82 is the highest target while €57 is the lowest. The blue-chip heavyweight closed with a 10.0 percent loss. South Korea’s Kospi index of shares rose by the most […]

I think Doug McMillon made a right decision when he redirected Walmart to increase worker pay, but I may be an minority of one and certainly no one on Wall Street agrees. Writing in Wal-Mart Shares Are Plummeting—3 Reasons They Could Fall Even Further Brian Souzi hyperventilates: Since the Feb. 19 announcement by Wal-Mart CEO […]

Tim Worstall thinks we should all be thankful for our cheap plastic crap from China and be good little consumers so that the economy will continue to chuck along producing profits and bonuses and dividends for those with enough disposable income to invest in gamble on the stock market. Writing in Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Understand […]

Well, not really, I think everyone knew that this shoe would drop, sooner or later as Walmart’s Wall Street masters expressed royal displeasure with stock performance. The question now is: will Walmart freeze or abandon completely, future raises announced earlier this year? Writing in Wal-Mart Cuts Some Workers’ Hours After Pay Raise Boosts Costs for […]

Walmart is a class traitor. That is the core message from an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. Headlined More Minimum-Wage Backfires, the unsigned editorial singles out Walmart for threatening the wealth of investors by giving in to the growing minimum-wage movement. The campaign for higher minimum wages continues to inflict damage on business […]

In the bad old days of Soviet-style communism, the path to the workers’ paradise was through a state-directed economy and the No. 1 tool for making that direction a reality was the five-year plan. Planning five years into the future is, at best, a hail-Mary exercise. There is simply too many unknowns. Yet, Adam Levine-Weinberg, […]

Yesterday I noted that Walmart CEO Doug McMillon cited pharmacy reimbursements as one of the reasons his company’s earnings per share numbers fell short. What was McMillon talking about? The Washington Post’s Carolyn Johnson in How health care reform adds to Wal-Mart’s pharmacy woes explains: A footnote in Wal-Mart’s second quarter earnings release this week […]

Wall Street, and the players there, are not happy with Walmart’s numbers. Sam Ro, writing in Walmart whiffs and warns for Business Insider ledes: Walmart’s quarterly financial results are out, and the numbers are a bit weak. A bit, Sam? The retail behemoth reported $120.3 billion in revenue, which was a hair higher than the […]

This past week I had occasion to discuss straight-line calculations with one of my students. He grasped the idea of being able to ascertain a growth (or depreciation) trend using simple linear equations: f(x)=ax+b but was not so quick to see the flaw in all such calculations: no line can continue forever. I don’t think […]