Walmart, the largest retailer across the nation, is poised to earn more than what has been estimated by analysts in the next financial quarter.
It is a part of the Zacks Retail – Supermarkets industry. In the last two financial reports, Walmart has earned more than the estimate that was given by their analysts by about 20.24%.
Zack’s Consensus Estimate for Walmart in the last quarter was an earnings of $1.19 per share but the actual earnings by Walmart touched $1.34 per share which shows a surprise increase of 12.61%. In the previous quarter, the estimates by Zacks was $1.22 per share and the actual earnings were $1.56 per share. This translated into a 27.87% increase over its estimate.
This surprise in earnings has made estimates trend higher. Walmart stock has a positive Zack’s Earnings Expected Surprise Prediction (ESP), which shows that the future earnings would be good especially when combined with its Zacks Rank, which is 3.
Research carried out indicates that a combination of positive Earnings ESP along with a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), generally produces a positive surprise almost 70% of the time. In simple terms, if you have 10 stocks with this particular combination, almost seven of these stocks would probably beat the consensus estimate.
In each quarter Zacks Earnings ESP compares two variables: the Most Accurate Estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate.
The Most Accurate Estimate can be defined as a dynamic version of the Zack’s Consensus Estimate and it changes according to circumstances. Analysts tend to take another closer look and change their estimates shortly before the release of earnings by a company. They get current information which has a high probability of being more precise and accurate when compared with what these analysts and others had presumed in earlier estimations.
Walmart (WMT) has an Earnings ESP of + 3.76% showing the prediction of a bullish trend by analysts. Combining this positive prediction with its high Zack Rank of 3 leads to the presumption that the company will once again beat the analysts estimates.
