Walmart Inc (WMT)

His model price on this is $103.60, a 30% upside. The savings rate in the US is going up. Any sort of wage increases that the US people are getting, they are saving it or paying down debt, as opposed to spending at.

The law of numbers certainly factors into this company in a big way. It benefits when times are good but not as much when times are bad and people really hunt for bargains. This will weather through thick and thin, which is what you are really looking for. Their on-line presence is competitive and promising, and they have the infrastructure to pan this out. Today’s actions might give you an opportunity to pick it up.

This is such a big company it is difficult for them to grow meaningfully. They are all over the globe. There are still markets they haven’t penetrated or done as well such as China and Germany. It is so big it is really tough to continue to grow aggressively. He thinks there is definitely hope for this company if they can streamline their operations and find some growth. In the shorter term, it takes a while.

It has been a pretty tough retail environment for them. The focus is on costs and running pretty lean.

Great company. They keep buying back stock, which has pushed the insiders back up to a level they are not comfortable with, causing them to sell some of their shares. This is one that he always looks at, but always seems to miss it. Not sure that he would buy this at the current price.

Wal-Mart (WMT-N) or Amazon.com (AMZN-Q)? 16 PE ratio. The reason Amazon has a sky high PE is because they don’t have any earnings at the moment. Of the 2, Amazon would be his preference. It is one of his favourite names. One of the best moves he has ever done is moving away from old retail to new retail.

(A Top Pick March 25/14. Up 7.94%.) Last year this had been underperforming and management have been doing really good things. This is a defensive stock. He got out of this when it popped. If it went down to $79, he would probably look at this again.

Has become a relatively slow growth retailer. A very large piece of their revenues are grocery based, and grocers are notoriously low margin businesses. This doesn’t interest him.

As a retailer to a lower demographic, they were supposed to get much of the benefit of lower gasoline prices, but they really haven’t seen it in any great degree. In addition, they have introduced a higher wage scale. This is not great for profit margins, so he has no plans to own this.

Well-run. Large cap and a blue-chip type of business to hold. Has pulled back a little bit from its highs. If the US economy does well this will be a beneficiary of that, particularly if the lower-end consumer comes back, as unemployment rates drop. They will also be a beneficiary of Target (TGT-N) leaving Canada.

His number 1 position. Consumer discretionary. With the cut in oil prices it will benefit.

Looked at this a while ago and came away thinking it is a company that is likely to do a little better into the future, but with the recent spike in price, that is probably priced in. This is a beneficiary of lower oil prices as it would lead people to spend some of their savings. The thing he has always worried about is that a very large percentage of their sales are based on groceries, a very low margin and tough business.

Thinks this is on the come back. Likes their positioning. US consumers have really held back in terms of purchases, and have been saving quite a bit. With more money in their pocket, we are starting to see same-store sales growth increase.

Historically this has really grown in line with the US GDP. They’ve most recently had their 1^st positive same-store sales in a few quarters. He thinks we are going to see a significant pick up from a little more money being in consumers’ pockets because of low oil prices. Stock has just broken out from a very long consolidation between $65 and $80. Expects there will be good dividend growth and better revenue comps. Relatively low risk. Yield of 2.26%.

A greater and greater percentage of sales (>50% now) are groceries and that is a tough, tough business with very low margins. They cannot pass through their input inflation. They are a company that is sensitive to the lower end of the economic scale.