Higher online costs sting Walmart

Article Excerpt

WALMART INC. $92 (New York symbol WMT; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 3.0 billion; Market cap: $276.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.6; Dividend yield: 2.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.walmart.com) is the world’s biggest retailer, with 11,703 outlets in 28 countries. Disregarding charges related to the new U.S. tax code and other unusual items, earnings for the fiscal 2018 fourth quarter rose 2.3%, to $1.33 from $1.30 a year earlier. Sales improved 4.1%, to $136.3 billion from $130.9 billion. More specifically, U.S. online sales jumped 23%. Walmart continues to close stores and expand its Internet business. Those costs will likely limit its fiscal 2019 earnings to $4.88 a share. That’s well below the consensus estimate of $5.13, and the stock dropped 10% as a result. Still, Walmart trades at a reasonable 18.9 times its new estimate. It also expects online sales to rise 40% in 2019. The company will now increase its dividend by 2.0%. The new annual rate of $2.08 a..