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Walmart fell more than 9% after reporting its slowest comparable-sales growth in six years. U.S. comparable sales rose 2.6%, below the 3.8% Wall Street expected, and the stock lost more than $80 billion of market value in a day. That looks like a (WMT) story. I think it may be a consumer story.
(WMT) also raised its full-year sales and profit forecasts, which is why I would not treat the selloff as evidence that the business suddenly broke. The more revealing part of the quarter was what customers were doing inside the stores. Traffic held up reasonably well, but the average amount spent weakened. (WMT) also cut prices on roughly 11,000 items during the quarter. If you lower prices and customers become more selective about what goes into the basket, I pay attention. That tells me more about consumer behavior than about Walmart itself.
