Wal-Mart Reports Mixed Q3, Shares Fall 3%

Shares of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) ticked lower by more than 3 percent early Thursday morning after the company reported third quarter results.

Wal-Mart said it earned $0.98 per share in the quarter on revenue of $118.2 billion. Analysts were expecting the company to earn $0.96 per share on revenue of $118.7 billion.

Here is a summary of what Wall Street analysts were expecting heading into the print.

Revenue for the quarter rose 0.7 percent from a year ago while U.S. comp sales rose 1.2 percent, driven by a traffic increase of 0.7 percent.

E-commerce sales and gross merchandise volume rose 20.6 percent and 16.8 percent, respectively during the quarter.

Here is a summary of revenue and comps by segment:

• Walmart US - revenue rose to $74.55 billion from $72.712 billion a year ago. Comp sales rose 1.2 percent.
• Walmart international - revenue fell to $28.39 billion from $29.81 billion a year ago.
• Sam's club - revenue rose to $14.24 billion from $14.08 billion a year ago. Comp sales (excluding fuel) rose 1.4 percent.

Guidance

Wal-Mart also provided an update to its outlook.

The company now expects to earn $4.20 to $4.35 per share for the full year which represents an improvement from management's prior guidance of $4.15 to $4.35 per share.

In addition, the company expects its comp sales for the quarter ending January 27, 2017, to be positive 1.0 to 1.5 percent in the Walmart U.S. segment and positive 1.0 to 1.5 percent (excluding fuel) in the Sam's Club segment.

Image: Mike Mozart, Flickr