WMT vs. COST, PSMT, TGT, DG, DLTR, BJ, FIVE, MNSO, OLLI, and BIG
Should you be buying Walmart stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Walmart include Costco Wholesale (COST), PriceSmart (PSMT), Target (TGT), Dollar General (DG), Dollar Tree (DLTR), BJ's Wholesale Club (BJ), Five Below (FIVE), MINISO Group (MNSO), Ollie's Bargain Outlet (OLLI), and Big Lots (BIG). These companies are all part of the "variety stores" industry.
Walmart (NYSE:WMT) and Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST) are both large-cap retail/wholesale companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, media sentiment, earnings, risk, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation and community ranking.
Costco Wholesale received 316 more outperform votes than Walmart when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 71.96% of users gave Costco Wholesale an outperform vote while only 60.39% of users gave Walmart an outperform vote.
26.8% of Walmart shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 68.5% of Costco Wholesale shares are held by institutional investors. 45.6% of Walmart shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Costco Wholesale shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Walmart has a net margin of 2.88% compared to Costco Wholesale's net margin of 2.73%. Costco Wholesale's return on equity of 28.80% beat Walmart's return on equity.
Walmart pays an annual dividend of $0.83 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Costco Wholesale pays an annual dividend of $4.64 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.6%. Walmart pays out 35.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Costco Wholesale pays out 30.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years.
Walmart has higher revenue and earnings than Costco Wholesale. Walmart is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Costco Wholesale, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
In the previous week, Walmart had 2 more articles in the media than Costco Wholesale. MarketBeat recorded 76 mentions for Walmart and 74 mentions for Costco Wholesale. Costco Wholesale's average media sentiment score of 0.61 beat Walmart's score of 0.52 indicating that Costco Wholesale is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Walmart has a beta of 0.49, suggesting that its stock price is 51% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Costco Wholesale has a beta of 0.77, suggesting that its stock price is 23% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Walmart presently has a consensus price target of $68.01, indicating a potential upside of 4.73%. Costco Wholesale has a consensus price target of $706.88, indicating a potential downside of 12.35%. Given Walmart's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Walmart is more favorable than Costco Wholesale.
Summary
Costco Wholesale beats Walmart on 11 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.
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This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding WMT and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
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