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Strategies & Market Trends : Can you beat 50% per month? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (9184)	1/5/2006 8:53:06 AM
From: Smiling Bob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19256

WMT again will steer the mkt south. When the retailing leader which makes up a large part of the US economy sneezes, we'll all get slimed. It's interesting that WMT has entered the upscale mkt, something I wrote about a few years ago Wal-Mart offers cautious view on quarter By Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch Last Update: 8:24 AM ET Jan. 5, 2006 CHICAGO (MarketWatch) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. warned investors Thursday that fourth-quarter profits were tracking toward the low of end of forecasts, meaning they would likely miss Wall Street's expectations. Investors reacted quickly, pushing Wal-Mart (WMT: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. News, chart, profile Last: 46.32+0.09+0.19% 8:06am 01/05/2006 Add to portfolio Analyst Create alert Insider Discuss Financials More WMT WMT46.32, +0.09, +0.2%) shares down 1.3% in pre-market trading to $45.72. Wal-Mart, which attempted to jump-start the holiday shopping season with a pricey marketing program that began Nov.1, said total sales climbed 6.3% to $40.83 billion from $38.42 billion a year ago. Same-store sales - an important industry measure of sales at stores open longer than a year - rose a modest 2.2%, the company repeated Thursday. However, it was food sales that fed most of December's sales, dominating receipts in three of the crucial month's weeks. As compared to general merchandise sales, food sales deliver thinner profit margins. Wal-Mart said that fourth-quarter results will fall to the low end of a range of 82 cents a share to 86 cents a share. At Thomson First Call, analysts had reached a dead-center average expectation of 84 cents. Typically, Wal-Mart would characterize its profit expectation as in the middle of the range if that's what executives were expecting. Giving rise to the receipts were higher ticket sales per transaction vs. more traffic in the stores. That suggests that at least some of Wal-Mart's (WMT: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. News, chart, profile Last: 46.32+0.09+0.19% 8:06am 01/05/2006 Add to portfolio Analyst Create alert Insider Discuss Financials More WMT WMT46.32, +0.09, +0.2%) customers aren't turned off by higher-priced merchandise such as $168 fresh-packed salmon filets or $100 set of 1,000-thread count sheets and pillow cases. On the other hand, it underscores a growing fear among many retailers that consumers - especially those whose budgets are pinched with higher energy costs -- are getting tapped out and shopping less. Wal-Mart has launched a number of initiatives in the last year aimed at selling higher-priced, better-quality merchandise that will attract a higher-income customer. That is a strategy that has worked well for rivals Target Corp. (TGT: target corp com News, chart, profile Last: 54.65-0.07-0.13% 4:15am 01/05/2006 Add to portfolio Analyst Create alert Insider Discuss Financials More TGT TGT54.65, -0.07, -0.1%) and Costco Wholesale (COST: costco whsl corp new com News, chart, profile Last: 50.08+0.16+0.32% 8:32am 01/05/2006 Add to portfolio Analyst Create alert Insider Discuss Financials More COST COST50.08, +0.16, +0.3%) , which have been able to better ride out the tide of a sluggish economy than Wal-Mart. The results were disappointing to investors - particularly because Wal-Mart held firm on its projection of a 2% to 4% rise in same-store sales throughout the month. This week, senior executives have attempted to temper the surprise, saying publicly that they were pleased with the holiday results. Jennifer Waters is a reporter for MarketWatch based in Chicago. Copyright © 2006 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy (updated 4/3/03). Intraday data provided by Comstock, a division of Interactive Data Corp. and subject to terms of use. Historical and current end-of-day data provided by FT Interactive Data. Intraday data delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. Dow Jones IndexesSM from Dow Jones & Company, Inc. SEHK intraday data is provided by Comstock and is at least 60-minutes delayed. All quotes are in local exchange time.