Overseas acquisitions push up sales

Article Excerpt

WAL-MART STORES INC. $56 (New York symbol WMT; Conservative Growth Portfolio: Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 3.5 billion; Market cap: $196.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.5; Dividend yield: 2.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.walmart.com) is benefitting from recent acquisitions of retailers in South Africa and the U.K. That’s helping it offset slower growth in the U.S. In the three months ended October 31, 2011, sales rose 8.1%, to $110.2 billion from $102.0 billion a year earlier. Earnings fell 2.5% to $3.5 billion from $3.6 billion, mainly because of a lower tax bill in the year-earlier quarter. Earnings per share rose 2.1%, to $0.97 from $0.95, on fewer shares outstanding. Wal-Mart is a buy. buy…