Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) shares are soaring after the company announced a 1.4% September same-store sales increase and upped its Q3 forecast from 62 to 65 cents per share to new estimates of 66 to 69 cents per share, above analysts' predictions of 63 cents. If you think that the company won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on WMT.
After hitting a one-year high of $52.15 in October 2006, the stock fell to a 52-week low of $42.09 in September. WMT opened this morning at $47.35. So far today the stock has hit a low of $46.93 and a high of $47.70. As of 10:55, WMT is trading at $47.18, up $1.59 (3.5%). The chart for WMT looks neutral but improving, while S&P gives the stock a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold rating.
For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a January bull-put credit spread below the $40 range. A bull-put credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of put options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. This particular trade will make a 5.3% return in just 3 months as long as WMT is above $40 at January expiration. Wal-Mart would have to fall by more than 30% before we would start to lose money.
WMT hasn't been below $40 at all in the past year and has shown support around $43 recently. This trade could be risky if the company's earnings (due out on 11/13) disappoint, but even if that happens, this position could be protected by strong support above $42, where WMT bottomed out in September.
Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer. DISCLOSURE: At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in WMT.
Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) is giving its long-suffering shareholders something to cheer about. That's because, according to TheStreet.com, Wal-Mart is raising its earnings estimates about 10%.
Wal-Mart now expects to make 68 or 69 cents a share for the quarter, up from its previous forecast of 62 to 65 cents a share -- citing gains in its expense control, which expanded profit margins. On the other hand, its sales are not exactly booming -- it said same-store sales rose 1.4% from a year ago in September, with sales in established Wal-Mart stores inching up 0.8% and those at Sam's Clubs store jumping 4.4%.
I think it would be great if Wal-Mart could keep tightening its expenses and then spinoff its core business -- retaining only the faster-growing Sam's Clubs stores. In the meantime, this boost in earnings growth is just what the doctor ordered for this beleaguered stock.
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer believes its results are going to be eye-popping regardless of the consumer's confidence because it's such a unique retailer.
Costco's (NASDAQ: COST) (Cramer's Take) not just another retailer. It is a better retailer. It is a destination retailer, on the order of a place you go out of curiosity and for entertainment.
It's also a cross between Target (NYSE: TGT) (Cramer's Take) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) (Cramer's Take). Why those two? Because it has the lowest-cost goods -- that's Wal-Mart -- and it is fun, with a treasure-hunt feel -- that's Target, which updates its merchandise quite regularly.
Costco has a great loss leader: gasoline. It has the best big-ticket items for the lowest prices. Its food selection now exceeds that of any supermarket, and its prices for groceries are much lower (not to mention, it offers free samples). It is a fabulous place to shop for party supplies and for sheer entertainment as well as for single people on the run.
In short, it is different. It is entertaining. Which also means that it should not be a way to judge the American consumer. It is just unlike anything out there. Just look at its latest earnings report.
I have long been a champion of Costco. I am also proud of my Costco membership, and I read the magazine the company sends out to members. I suspect Costco will be the biggest seller of my next book, Stay Mad for Life, due out in December. It is the smartest buyer and the smartest seller.
Remarkable store; remarkable stock. But no gauge of the American consumer at all.
Jim Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this post.
Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) same-store sales, revenue, international business and forecasts all moved up. As did the stock, which has gained 4% before the open.
According toReuters, "Wal-Mart Stores Inc on Thursday reported a 1.4 percent rise in September sales at U.S. stores open at least a year, toward the low end of its forecast, but raised its third-quarter earnings estimate."
The really big wins for Wal-Mart came from its revenue increase for the period and unusual strength overseas. Revenue for the five weeks ending October 5 moved up 10% to $34.4 billion. International revenue was up 20% to $8.9 billion. The company said that for the September five-week period, comparable store sales at the Wal-Mart stores segment were driven by grocery and pharmacy. The $4 prescription deal must be working.
The story behind the numbers is that international business is 26% of Wal-Mart's overall sales now. If it can grow at its current pace, Wal-Mart may be saved by its overseas operations.
As some of you have probably already noticed, this year's holiday shopping season has started a little earlier than usual. For those of you who have not noticed the early arrival of the season, don't worry, you aren't blind, you are just proof that retailers have been successful in their attempt to start the holiday shopping without anyone noticing.
Typically, we can at least expect retailers to wait until we get past Halloween to start the hard hitting marketing campaigns, but this year is a bit different. Retailers usually expect strong sales leading up to the holidays, but this year there are economic jitters weighing on the minds of consumers, along with fear related to the massive Chinese toy recalls that we have witnessed this year, and are likely to continue to hear about.
Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) will be keeping its Fayetteville, Arkansas location to be near to number-one customer Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT). One of the world's largest consumer goods conglomerates won't be, however, moving into Bentonville, the global headquarters of the world's largest retailer. While other retailers have moved into offices inside Bentonville city limits, P&G chose to stay in Fayetteville and open additional office space. After all, Bentonville is only 45 minutes up the road, and P&G management seems more interested in employee satisfaction than being geographically joined at the hip with its largest customer.
P&G officials set up shop in Fayetteville just under 20 years ago due to the combination of the university town (UA is there) as well as a ready-made setup of office space. In other words, Fayetteville was the place to be 20 years ago in terms of a town ready to accept the office needs of global Wal-Mart customer P&G. Today, Bentonville looks like a Las Vegas-style hotel metropolis and the skyline has transformed that once-small country town. Still, P&G remains committed to Fayetteville, where it has been since 1988. Its global headquarters remain in Cincinnatti, Ohio.
The reasons sound like they come from an small business employer who cares about employees, not from a billion-dollar Lafley & Co. merchandise powerhouse. Quality schools, health care and overall quality of life for employees are the reasons that are being cited for P&G's decision to stay in Fayetteville. Another reason: recruiting from the nearby University of Arkansas. With the company owning 22 billion-dollar brands, it sells about 15% of that figure annually to Wal-Mart.
According to The Associated Press, the home decor industry is the "latest casualty of the ongoing housing and mortgage lending bust".
The purchase of new home furnishings is an easy expenditure for consumers to put off -- if people are anxious about their mortgage, or disheartened that their home isn't appreciating in value like it was a few years ago, that old couch starts to look a lot better.
All of this makes Pier 1 Imports (NYSE: PIR) look like a tough bet. The stock rallied last week on an analyst upgrade, but continues to face sales and margin pressures, in part because of lower-price competitors like Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). The company is in the midst of an attempted turnaround but the combination of competitive pressures and an industry-wide slowdown that recently claimed Bombay could be too much for the company to handle.
In the most recent quarter, Pier 1 saw its sales decline 7%, and it's going to be hard to turn that around if the industry as a whole continues to sputter.
In June, I suggested that it might be time for Wal-Mart and Pier 1 to team up. if Pier 1 continues to struggle with sales and profitability, and Wal-Mart continues to struggle to reach the more upscale demographic Target (NYSE: TGT) has nailed, it's something that both parties might want to consider.
Perusing a local Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) location this weekend while doing some research, I noticed a rather gory Halloween display near the exit of the store. This seemed like a good impulse purchase for those silly enough to want a fairly lifelike headless monster decorating their houses for a few weeks. In fact, I was amazed Wal-Mart featured this display, since the conservative chain won't stock some DVDs or CDs due to content that's not very 'wholesome'.
Looks like I'm not the only one who was surprised at the display, as a mom in Texas is now saying the same display in her local Wal-Mart gave her three daughters nightmares. Four year-old Grace Whitney stated that, "It looked like a real, live monster," while mom Adriana Whitney said that she didn't expect to see something like that while grocery shopping at Wal-Mart.
Ms. Whitney told a local news station that all three of her daughters were unable to sleep in their rooms after seeing the display. As a result of the complaint, Wal-Mart moved the display from the entrance area to an aisle where the other Halloween displays are kept. My question is this: why place something a tad over the line next to the doors where everyone can see it in the first place? I visited a Target (NYSE: TGT) store this weekend as well -- no goofy headless statues were next to its door. But, perhaps the margin on this product is enough to justify Wal-Mart's placement, eh?
At least this recall was not for something made in China. The Sam's Club unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) said that beef from agribusiness giant Cargill might contain E. coli that cause intestinal illness.
According to the Associated Press, "Cargill learned of the issue Friday, when a compliance officer from the federal Agriculture Department visited the company's ground beef facility in Butler, Wis., Klein said. Officials had traced the patties back to that plant."
Of course, the fact that the meat came from Cargill does not do Sam's Club much good. Few consumers look beyond the brand of the retail outlet when a generic product like beef is recalled.
The news showed that no matter how vigilant U.S. companies are, they remain dependent on their suppliers both for goods and services, and, ultimately, their reputations. Mattel Inc. (NYSE: MAT) has learned that the hard way as it struggles to get out from the damage done to its reputation by the sale of lead-painted toys built in China.
No big retail company has enough inspectors, or can afford enough, to make certain that each item it sells is OK. The Chinese may make bad toys, but it appears that the U.S. has made some bad meat.
Cognizant has been on Fortune's list of fastest growing companies for the past five years. This Teaneck-based member of the S&P 500 is a global IT services firm with clients in the health care, financial services, and manufacturing industries. Cognizant's three-year annual revenue growth rate was 56 percent; its three-year annual earnings per share growth rate was 55 percent. The consensus of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial is that Cognizant is a buy, and the company has beat Wall Street expectations for the past four quarters. The share price of $85.79 at close on Friday is up from the 52-week low of $67.60 in September. The price has risen since Cognizant announced a stock split and share repurchase program in September, and the Motley Fool has since dubbed Cognizant a hypergrowth stock.
Summit-based Celgene is a biopharmaceuticals firm involved in cancer treatment and stem cell research. Its three-year annual revenue growth rate was 48 percent; its three-year annual earnings per share growth rate was 33 percent. The consensus of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial is that Celgene is a buy. The share price reached a 52-week high of $72.91 on Friday. The Motley Fool recognized Celgene for its sustainable competitive advantage over its rivals, and Jim Cramer also likes Celgene.
Welcome to the 31st installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions and just a bit of everything else when it comes down to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.
Last week, I brought you a look at why Wal-Mart has a chance to really stand out from the crowd with its green, eco-conscious initiatives. The retailer stands to make a pretty large difference in the area of environmental sustainability if it continues to trumpet energy conservation and sustainable practices, although it is having a hard time getting that message out to customers. In other words, Wal-Mart's PR actions aren't following its admirable eco-actions. Why this is, I'm not sure.
This week, I'll be expanding on an idea this past week that looked at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) in terms of an "empire in decline," so to speak. The Wall Street Journal ran a piece earlier this week that looked at why Wal-Mart is in a funk, and why the world's largest retailer no longer commands the power it once did. All companies have a peak followed by inevitable decline, right? Read on.
Don't be surprised if you can't find issues of magazines such as Time and Vogue on Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) shelves next week. According to Jeremy Greenfield of minonline, Anderson News, a fulfillment company in the magazine sales process, is embroiled in a tiff with magazine publishers over the costs accompanying a change in the way magazine sales are handled.
The controversy starts with scan-based trading (SBT), a technology that Wal-Mart and others have long used to eliminate inventory risk and cost. In SBT, the distributor/vendor retains ownership of its items on the retailer's shelf until the time of sale. At the moment of sale, the retailer buys the item from the wholesaler.
Until recently, the magazine trade had been operating under the old practice, where retailers bought a batch of magazines and returned unsold ones at the end of the month for credit. SBT streamlines the accounting and transfers the inventory costs to the wholesaler.
Anderson News, distributor for some of the country's largest magazine publishers including Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) and the Curtis Circulation Company, has balked at carrying the cost of unsold inventory on its books. Instead, it wants the publishers to retain ownership until the time of sale. It also wants the publishers to chip in to cover the one-time cost of changing over from the traditional model to SBT.
Greenfield reports that Curtis has settled with Anderson, but Time Warner has not. With the dwindling advertising dollars pulled in by Time and other TW mags, it can't afford many weeks when they don't appear on the newsstand.
Walking through Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) with my brother was frustrating me to no end last night: I couldn't find anything and the store was a complete mess.
"It would be easier to find stuff if people worked here," I said, referring to the fact that we couldn't find an employee to save our lives.
"I think Wal-Mart might be God's punishment for cheap people," he replied.
Apparently, we're not the only ones who are fed up. According to The Wall Street Journal, "The Wal-Mart Era, the retailer's time of overwhelming business and social influence in America, is drawing to a close."
Basically, retailers have found a way to compete with Wal-Mart. Conceding that consumers can save money by shopping at Wal-Mart, competitors have focused on atmosphere, customer service and selection. And their findings have been encouraging: Low prices are not the be-all and end-all for many consumers. People are also skipping Wal-Mart -- and willing to pay more -- for the peace of mind that comes from patronizing a store with a better reputation on employee relations.
So, is Wal-Mart losing its relevance? Maybe not. I would argue that Wal-Mart's focus on low prices has forced other retailers to compete on quality; Bentonville's stinginess may actually be serving to raise the bar at other companies that can no longer take for granted that their prices are about the same as other stores.
So even if you don't shop at Wal-Mart -- and even if the company is past its prime in terms of influence -- it may be making shopping (elsewhere) a better experience for you.
The Wall Street Journal ran the piece on its front page. "Wal-Mart Era Wanes Amid Big Shifts In Retail."
But, it is old news. The company is too down-market. It is not politically correct. The internet is taking customers. Many consumers want quality over price. Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) does not offer enough personal service to customers.
The Journal sums it up this way: "For 10 years through 2005, Wal-Mart's sales gains at stores open at least a year averaged 5.2%. So far this year, its comparable-store sales, a measure of market share, is up just 1.3%. The pricing gap between Wal-Mart and rivals has narrowed, and more customers are now choosing convenience over wading through a supercenter."
That all may be true, but it also misses part of the point. Wal-Mart's sales have hit a mediocre patch during one of the greatest economic expansions of the last several decades. The rise in home prices and improving wages made the consumer feel a bit richer. He wanted a better shopping experience. He could afford better stuff. His home equity loan let him buy nicer clothes, a new car, and some up-market furniture for his house.
But, that era of prosperity may be ending now. Consumers may well begin to look for bargains. They may need them to stay in the game when their variable rate mortgages reset at higher interest rates
The low cost of shopping at Wal-Mart will be back in style. The consumer is starting to feel pinched.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) shares are soaring after the company announced a 1.4% September same-store sales increase and upped its Q3 forecast from 62 to 65 cents per share to new estimates of 66 to 69 cents per share, above analysts' predictions of 63 cents. If you think that the company won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on WMT.
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer believes its results are going to be eye-popping regardless of the consumer's confidence because it's such a unique retailer.
As some of you have probably already noticed, this year's holiday shopping season has started a little earlier than usual. For those of you who have not noticed the early arrival of the season, don't worry, you aren't blind, you are just proof that retailers have been successful in their attempt to 
Perusing a local 
.gif){kind=logo}
Don't be surprised if you can't find issues of magazines such as Time and Vogue on 
Game Changer: Google hits $200 billion market cap -- is $500 billion in sight?
Interview with the head of Xerox's (XRX) Webster research lab
General Electric (GE) Q3 quarterly results preview
