Report
John Brick, CFA
EUR 100.00 For Business Accounts Only

Walmart's dominant scale enables investments in its business, but constrains profits.

Two themes stood out to us in wide-moat Walmart's fourth-quarter update. First, the company continues to see traction with consumers despite increased pressure from Amazon and other mass merchants, with U.S. comparable-store sales and e-commerce growth up 2.6%--including a 1.6% increase in traffic--and 23% respectively, which we think supports its intangible assets. Second, this growth is coming at the expense of margins, with gross margins falling 60 basis points to 24.1% due to the firm loweri...
Underlying
Walmart Inc.

Walmart is engaged in global operations of retail, wholesale and other units, as well as eCommerce, located throughout the U.S., Africa, Argentina, Canada, Central America, Chile, China, India, Japan, Mexico and the U.K. The company's operations are conducted in three reportable segments: Walmart U.S., which is a mass merchandiser of consumer products, operating under the Walmart and Walmart Neighborhood Market brands, as well as walmart.com, jet.com and other eCommerce brands; Walmart International, which includes various formats divided into retail, wholesale and other categories; and Sam's Club, which is a membership-only warehouse club that also operates samsclub.com.

Provider
Morningstar
Morningstar

Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The company offer an extensive line of products and services for individual investors, financial advisors, asset managers, and retirement plan providers and sponsors.

Morningstar provides data on approximately 530,000 investment offerings, including stocks, mutual funds, and similar vehicles, along with real-time global market data on more than 18 million equities, indexes, futures, options, commodities, and precious metals, in addition to foreign exchange and Treasury markets. Morningstar also offers investment management services through its investment advisory subsidiaries and had approximately $185 billion in assets under advisement and management as of June 30, 2016.

We have operations in 27 countries.

Analysts
John Brick, CFA

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