Walmart (WMT) Earnings Thursday: Retail Earnings, Same-Store Sales, Consumer Behavior
Walmart (WMT) Earnings Thursday: Retail Earnings, Same-Store Sales, Consumer Behavior
By:Gus Downing
Walmart (WMT) is set to report their Q3 FY2025 earnings on Thursday, November 20, before market open.
Analyst consensus expectations call for an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.60 and revenue of $77 billion.
Aside from EPS, revenue, and forward guidance, shares could also be impacted by new information on retail and same-store sales, margins, e-commerce, and tariffs.
Where Walmart Stands Now
2025 has treated Walmart fairly well thus far. Shares are trading up around 12%, which is especially good when compared to their main competitors, Target (TGT) and Costco (COST), who are down 38% and 3% on the year, respectively.
Walmart has managed to drive growth while their competitors have stagnated and shrunk due to a solid top line, great value (no pun intended) in their stores, and smart navigation of an ever-changing tariff landscape.
The importance of Walmart’s top line and value offerings can not be understated. Value hunting has defined domestic consumer behavior for the last half decade, and Walmart has provided it while maintaining margins, pulling in shoppers across all income levels and growing their e-commerce business 26% year-over-year (YoY)
What to Watch on Thursday
Beyond Walmart’s core numbers on EPS, revenue, and forward guidance, there are four other primary factors which could tangibly impact share price following this call: retail and same-store sales, pricing and margins, e-commerce, and tariffs.
Chief among this list is retail and same-store sales. These metrics typically set the tone for the day on Walmart’s calls, and if visits stay healthy and comps hold up, investors would be able to listen in on the rest of the call in a very good mood.
Pricing and margins will also be paramount on this call; Walmart has managed growth against their competitor’s losses due to their robust value offerings. Investors will be eager to hear how margins are looking on those more affordable offerings, as well as how much tariffs and price investments are weighing on gross margin.
Walmart’s e-commerce segment is the last major piece, but not in a traditional way. While e-commerce sales will obviously matter, investors will actually be more interested to hear about Walmart’s advertising business, Walmart Connect. If ad revenues continue to increase, those profits could support the company’s bottom line even when shoppers trend down.
The options market is pricing in a rather aggressive 6% move in either direction, which is corroborated by Target’s big move on earnings this morning.
Tariffs Scenarios and 2026 Plan
Walmart investors have much more to be excited about than investors in almost any other brick-and-mortar retail business, and that doesn’t show any signs of changing into 2026 and beyond.
In the medium-term, Walmart’s path to success remains clear; maintain growth in traffic through the holiday season with value and convenience offerings, ideally without hurting margins, and then do everything possible to keep those holiday shoppers coming back well into the new year.
In the longer-term, the waters are a bit murkier, but there is no reason Walmart can not continue to find success. The aforementioned tariff landscape is the primary variable that hurts long-term clarity; any change in tariff policy could ripple through prices, demand, and profitability. Management will likely give some insight into their tariff contingency plans on this call or the next.
Walmart is massively outperforming their competitors on the year and have shown an elevated propensity to profitably navigate tariffs, which means there’s no reason to believe they’ll slow down anytime soon. However, the other side of that equation is that perhaps Walmart can only sustain against tariff pressure for so long, and could potentially run out of steam sometime soon.
Gus Downing is host of the tastylive Network show Risk and Reward. @GainsByGus
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