Walmart shares hit fresh 52-week highs Thursday morning after the retailer beat earnings expectations thanks, in large part, to a booming e-commerce and grocery delivery business.
Online sales jumped 41 percent in the most recent quarter with the important same-store-sales metric rising by over 3 percent.
Adjusted earnings per share were $1.16, above the consensus forecast of $1.09.
In a conference call with investors, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon praised the company's employees for driving its continued transformation into an e-commerce giant. "Our associates are responding to change in an inspiring way and we're proud of them," he said.
Even President Trump congratulated the big-box retailer on its beat (and managed to get in a dig at the Fed Chair in the same breath).
Walmart has been investing heavily in its online infrastructure to better compete with Amazon, and groceries have been a cornerstone of that investment. The largest grocer in the U.S., grocery sales make up the majority of Walmart's domestic revenue stream. More than 3,000 Walmart locations now offer customers the option to order groceries online and pick them up in store; nearly half of those offer home grocery delivery. Still, only a tiny fraction of Americans do their food shopping online, offering Walmart and others a huge potential for growth.
McMillon noted that the company's recent strength ー four years and counting of quarterly gains ー has been "driven by food," but said it needs to make even greater progress in its e-commerce offerings, which is a segment still dominated by Amazon and in which Walmart faces additional competition from the likes of Target. A major test of both Walmart and Target's online investments is fast approaching with the holiday shopping season. Both of those companies are offering faster free delivery options and curbside pick-up, a growing segment of e-commerce that is especially attractive for last-minute shoppers.
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
