Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) will experience a turnaround in revenue and profit this holiday season, according to Stephens’ managing director John Lawrence. Speaking on CNBC, Lawrence said he expects the retailer to continue to improve in the coming months leading into the holidays, despite Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT)’s lowering their own year-long expectations this week.
“We’ve seen the last several years, when Wal-Mart is in stock and Wal-Mart lets the consumer know that their everyday low price and their aggressive on-price, they usually win the battle, and we will see again this year that they will be aggressive in some categories […],” Lawrence said regarding how aggressive he expects Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) to be on pricing and discounts this holiday season.
Lawrence also believes Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) has made great strides in developing their e-commerce platform, and that they’ll have a fully integrated system connecting their physical assets to enhanced online distribution channels, for the first time.
Lawrence thinks that Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT)’s U.S operations will benefit tremendously from the recent appointment of Greg Foran as President and CEO of Wal-Mart U.S. Foran helped guided Wal-Mart’s operations in China and later the rest of Asia, and was instrumental in their solid growth in those regions, despite some difficulties.
“[…] It will be interesting to see now, the leader of some of that business, that’s created some of that change, is Greg Foran, and how he’s coming with that experience to run the U.S business, and he’s been on the job a week, and he’s going to be a little more aggressive on the operational side at Wal-Mart U.S., and once again, we think the key to the story at this point, and the catalyst is clearly just getting Wal-Mart U.S sales positive over the next couple of quarters, and that would obviously be a major catalyst for the stock in our opinion,” Lawrence said.
Disclosure: none
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