WMT vs. COST, HD, MCD, BABA, PDD, LOW, AMZN, PSMT, TGT, and DG
Should you be buying Walmart stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of Walmart include Costco Wholesale (COST), Home Depot (HD), McDonald's (MCD), Alibaba Group (BABA), PDD (PDD), Lowe's Companies (LOW), Amazon.com (AMZN), PriceSmart (PSMT), Target (TGT), and Dollar General (DG). These companies are all part of the "retail/wholesale" sector.
Walmart (NYSE:WMT) and Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST) are both large-cap retail/wholesale companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings, risk, institutional ownership, community ranking, profitability and media sentiment.
Costco Wholesale has a net margin of 2.73% compared to Walmart's net margin of 2.39%. Costco Wholesale's return on equity of 28.80% beat Walmart's return on equity.
Costco Wholesale received 331 more outperform votes than Walmart when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 71.93% of users gave Costco Wholesale an outperform vote while only 60.12% of users gave Walmart an outperform vote.
26.8% of Walmart shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 68.5% of Costco Wholesale shares are owned by institutional investors. 46.5% of Walmart shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Costco Wholesale shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.
Walmart currently has a consensus price target of $61.75, indicating a potential upside of 4.10%. Costco Wholesale has a consensus price target of $694.48, indicating a potential downside of 3.93%. Given Walmart's stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Walmart is more favorable than Costco Wholesale.
In the previous week, Walmart had 38 more articles in the media than Costco Wholesale. MarketBeat recorded 85 mentions for Walmart and 47 mentions for Costco Wholesale. Costco Wholesale's average media sentiment score of 0.66 beat Walmart's score of 0.13 indicating that Costco Wholesale is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Walmart has a beta of 0.49, suggesting that its share price is 51% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Costco Wholesale has a beta of 0.77, suggesting that its share price is 23% less volatile than the S&P 500.
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.
Walmart pays an annual dividend of $0.83 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Costco Wholesale pays an annual dividend of $4.64 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.6%. Walmart pays out 43.4% 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.
Summary
Costco Wholesale beats Walmart on 12 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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