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 superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, media sentiment, community ranking, valuation, profitability, risk, dividends, earnings and analyst recommendations.
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.
Costco Wholesale received 322 more outperform votes than Walmart when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 71.91% 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 owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 68.5% of Costco Wholesale shares are owned by institutional investors. 45.6% 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, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.
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 presently has a consensus price target of $68.01, suggesting a potential upside of 3.42%. Costco Wholesale has a consensus price target of $743.52, suggesting a potential downside of 8.20%. Given Walmart's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts plainly believe Walmart is more favorable than Costco Wholesale.
In the previous week, Costco Wholesale had 47 more articles in the media than Walmart. MarketBeat recorded 102 mentions for Costco Wholesale and 55 mentions for Walmart. Walmart's average media sentiment score of 0.60 beat Costco Wholesale's score of 0.59 indicating that Walmart is being referred to more favorably in the 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 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.
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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