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By Sam Boughedda
Investing.com — Walmart Inc’s (NYSE:) excessive grocery publicity and dedication to holding costs low for customers make it some of the defensive names in RBC Capital’s protection universe, analyst Steven Shemesh mentioned Friday.
Shemesh reiterated an Outperform ranking and $160 worth goal on Walmart, forward of its earnings earlier than the bell, Might seventeenth.
The RBC Capital analyst made the evaluation after using Numerator Insights information to mission gross sales, which he mentioned has traditionally had a 90% correlation to Walmart gross sales.
For the primary quarter, the info factors to comparable gross sales of +2.5% in comparison with a consensus of +1.8%, the analyst mentioned.
He added that based mostly on business read-through, they “imagine progress slowed all through April as the corporate lapped stimulus/unemployment advantages and as inflationary pressures adversely impacted consumption traits.”
“For 1Q, we’re modeling Walmart U.S. comp progress of +2% (cons. +1.8%) and EPS of $1.46 (cons. $1.48). Primarily based on our channel work we expect our estimates are cheap,” wrote Shemesh.
After initially rising on Friday, Walmart shares at the moment are down 0.25%.
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