Walmart

Wal-Mart primarily competes in a domestic and an international market (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, United Kingdom). In this capacity Wal-Mart provides goods and services using a low cost and delivery method that provides an edge over other retailers. There is an IT infrastructure in place which leads to inbound and outbound logistics and distribution efficiencies that reduce dependency on supplier’s inefficiencies.

The focus of this study will review the stock valuation of a historical time frame and will use calculations to express validity to the claim of the stock being stable between different time frames.

THE COMPANY

The Wal-Mart department store chain, which employs 2.1 million people at 4,700 stores worldwide and in 2002, became the largest corporation in the world. Wal-Mart has taken a dominant or near-dominant position in key sectors of the retail market: 19% of all grocery-store food in the United States, command of 35% of the market, 16% of all pharmacy-drug sales in the United States, controls 30% of the U.S. household staples market, controls 30% of the U.S. household staples market, and 15% of all single-copy news publications. Wal-Mart also controls a large and increasing share of the business done by almost every major consumer-products company: 28.3% of Dial's (soap products); 24% of Del Monte Foods'; 23% of Clorox's (bleaches and cleaners); and 23% of Revlon's (cosmetics). It controls one-fifth or more of the business done by Proctor & Gamble (household products and soaps); Levi Strauss (jeans and clothing); and Newell Rubbermaid (household consumer rubber products). That is, Wal-Mart is these firms’ entire biggest outlet, by a wide margin. (Freeman, Tinknor, 2003)

Wal-Mart's annual sales quadrupled from $55.5 billion in its Fiscal Year 1993, to $244.5 billion in FY 2003 (which ended Jan. 1, 2003). (Freeman, Tinknor, 2003) The business model includes: marketing to a broad "family" demographic that...