Walmart Inc (WMT)

Last week, analyst Larry Williams advised buying Walmart and Costco before Easter, because both tend to do well this time of year. the stocks moved up, though remember that these are "essential retailers" so their move up came at the expense of the non-essential stores. We're robbing Peter to pay Paul. Both have been punished recently for being unfashionable lockdown stocks and both deserve to be your in your portfolio.

Last mile delivery is on everyone's mind and a key component for the consumer. Walmart's in the hunt to do that. In that arena, if he had to choose between AMZN and WMT, he'd choose AMZN. It's coming from a position of power, whereas WMT is old school, bricks and mortar mentality.

How consumers will spend their latest stimulus cheques, just passed A lot of past stimulus cheques went to Target and Walmart where people did a lot of shopping, and it will happen this time around. He also expects big-ticket sales like cars.

Consumer staple names have fallen off, with trades into cyclicals. Tough to own given the valuation relative to what the growth rates are. You're paying 24x PE for 5-6% growth rate, a bit pricey. Prefers Costco in this space; not cheap, but growth rate is better. COST is doing things well in the e-commerce space.

They report Thursday. Can they go head to head against Amazon. He wants to hear about their initiatives and benchmarks to show they are still hungry under their new CEO. He's been adding to his holdings because it's pulled back hard.

He holds Costco instead, as it brings in 3x as much in sales. WMT is a good name, but has lower growth prospects. Trying to enhance their digital experience, and he can't predict results just yet. 26x earnings, 6% earnings growth. Not cheap, but not expensive.

E-commerce will continue to be a trend this year with Covid; it's here to stay. This will be the year of Walmart and Costco, both of which were crushed today, but that means a buying opportunity.

He owns little retail now. It's done well in 2020, but is a little pricey given their PE, but he's stick with it. They're online presence suggests they could go head-to-head with Amazon. They continue to grow and reinvent themselves for the changing consumer, when old models don't work. A great stock.

WMT-N vs. COST-Q. Both names are core consumer staples companies. WMT-N has done a good job of transitioning to e-commence. COST-Q have this membership fee and every time they raise it, it all falls to the bottom line. She would prefer WMT-N because the multiple is lower, but would buy either one of them.