Latest news with #DavidBellinger
Globe and Mail
2 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
'The Multi-Year Rebuild…Is Working' Walmart Stock (NYSE:WMT) Gets Boost From Mizuho
Giant retailer Walmart (WMT) has been working to recover from the hits it took trying to compete with online stores and its own negative image. 'People of Walmart,' anyone? But the long road it has taken to recover seems to be working, and as far as Mizuho Securities is concerned, it already has worked. Investors were willing to play along, and gave shares a fractional boost in Monday afternoon's trading. Confident Investing Starts Here: Mizuho, via analyst David Bellinger, noted, 'The multi-year rebuild into a much more tech-led player is working, with a focus on speed of delivery and further volume gains ahead.' In fact, Bellinger noted, Walmart was on track to clear $100 billion in annual ecommerce revenues just in the United States. This would put ecommerce as 10% of Walmart's total annual sales in the United States, and that in turn would make it the second largest online player, with only Amazon (AMZN) ahead of it. This in turn is opening up significant opportunities for Walmart as a power in not only domestic sales, but also in '…advertising, marketplace, and membership…' opportunities as well. Chasing the Kids Meanwhile, Walmart is acutely aware of the impact of tariffs on its operations, especially after the person perhaps most responsible for putting them there, President Trump, demanded Walmart 'eat the tariffs' rather than hike prices. Walmart may not have completely followed orders on that one, but there are signs that Walmart is actively courting the younger demographics as it pursues young shoppers. In fact, reports note, Walmart pulled out a whole new ad campaign designed to haul in the youngsters, along with a tween-focused clothing brand. Walmart even has plans to ramp up its drone deliveries as well, trying to get more shoppers to part with their money in a time when everyone is starting to feel the pinch, and is pulling in their spending accordingly. Is Walmart Stock a Good Buy Right Now? Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on WMT stock based on 28 Buys and two Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 45.56% rally in its share price over the past year, the average WMT price target of $109.66 per share implies 12.63% upside potential. See more WMT analyst ratings Disclosure Disclaimer & Disclosure Report an Issue
CNBC
19-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Mizuho's David Bellinger: Tariff pressure will 'absolutely help' Walmart in near-term
David Bellinger, Mizuho senior analyst, joins CNBC's 'Money Movers' to discuss the potential impact of tariffs on Walmart.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Walmart set the tone for retail earnings: How to play the sector
Walmart (WMT) is warning of higher prices ahead as new tariffs kick in. David Bellinger, Mizuho Americas director and senior analyst, joins Market Domination to break down how Walmart's pricing power and fast-growing ad business could help offset margin pressure. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination here. Walmart reporting first quarter earnings this morning in the CFO talking to Yahoo Finance earlier today warning of higher prices ahead due to tariffs. Given that you've got 30% tariffs on certain categories of items that are going to be imported, you're likely going to see some price increases go up there. With Walmart setting the tone for other big box earnings in the coming weeks, we're now getting how to play the retail sector with the Yahoo Finance Playbook. And joining us now is David Bellinger, director and senior analyst at Mizuho Americas. David, it is good to see you. I I do want your take on on the Walmart results, David. Uh, you know, mixed results, but uh, it's it's the talk of tariffs and price hikes getting getting attention there. I I'm curious just to get your take. What what do you make of the report and commentary from the company? Yeah, thanks for having me back on. We looked at this as very solid Q1 print. The stock was all over the place this morning. It was up pre-market. It was down 5% at the open. We've clawed back most of those losses or almost flat. But it it looked like the demand picture was getting overlooked here. So sales picked up each and every month of Q1. I thought the commentary on the start to Q2 was pretty constructive. But what's happening here is Walmart did not provide Q2 operating income or earnings per share, uh, guidance for for the quarter, and it it looks like you might have some of these wild swings because of the price increases, so they don't know. It seems like the the ranges implied are very wide. So that uncertainty what is what led to this this downdraft in shares today. And also just entering the print, you've had a big run up. The stocks up almost 20% off the April lows. So we think that this was, uh, sort of a sell the news event, but the demand picture, we thought we thought was, uh, pretty good in general. David, um, Walmart obviously doesn't raise its prices that often or that by that much, right? That's one of the reasons, um, that it has remained popular with shoppers. When it does, what tends to be the effect and what do you expect to happen this time? Well, for any retailer, when you raise prices, you you usually see volumes slow down. This elasticity of demand type impact and demand destruction. So what Walmart's doing here is raising prices. I mean, you you essentially have to with 145% tariff goods, even at 30%, is hard to absorb all of those costs. So prices have to go up across the board, across retail. But what Walmart has here, which is pretty unique to them, is we see this optionality to not raise prices as quickly. You keep those spreads versus your competitors pretty wide, and they're even taking some prices down, which we think is the more interesting piece here. It should drive volume. Why why they can do this is they've got this second P&L, right? They've got advertising, marketplace, membership. So those are really high margin businesses, and they are growing incredibly fast. And that's basically funding any type of gross margin hit they might have. They'll have an offset with those businesses. And just just a small example here, the advertising business almost a five billion dollar annual run rate business, that's bigger than Pinterest, growing faster than Pinterest. So it it's very interesting dynamic here and very unique to Walmart that they've got these accretive drivers in the background. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Costco & Target: Why this analyst doesn't rate them as a Buy
Costco (COST) and Target (TGT) are two of America's largest retailers. But Mizuho Americas senior analyst David Bellinger doesn't have Buy recommendations on either stock. Find out why in the video above. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Asking for a Trend here. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Costco & Target: Why this analyst doesn't rate them as a Buy
Costco (COST) and Target (TGT) are two of America's largest retailers. But Mizuho Americas senior analyst David Bellinger doesn't have Buy recommendations on either stock. Find out why in the video above. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Asking for a Trend here. let's also talk about Costco. That one you're lukewarm on that one. Let's say got a neutral rating there and it sounds like valuation is a concern for you. Exactly. So, a couple things here. Great company, we don't think it's a great stock, just because of where this setup here, and you've got a consumer name trading at almost 50 times earnings. So that's a big number. Walmart's in the mid 30s, also a big number, but relatively better. And so Costco, incredible operator. Their their execution has been nothing short of stellar in our view. You've got these mid single digit consistent comp numbers each and every month. No one's really putting that up across the consumer space, but our concerns here is they do have an ads business, very similar to Walmart, but we think management has a different intention here, where you won't see all the upside flow through to the bottom line and in quintessential fashion, Costco puts that upside back into the member experience. So, lower prices, better rewards. Then that's probably the the right thing to do to protect your sales base, but we think investors are expecting a little more on the flow through. And then just evaluation piece, if if you potentially have a business that's set up with all these investments to have a higher leverage point. What I mean by that is you need mid-single digits or high single digit sales in order to get margins higher. If if you have that set up going into a potentially slowing macro environment, we we just think that's difficult to underwrite 50 times earnings on. And then final final ticker, I want your take on Target. Now, that one, you're neutral as well. So why are you on the sidelines there, David? And what would you need to see before getting more constructive? Yeah. This has been, Target has massive upside potential here, right? You're talking about a stock in the mid 90s or so, margins have been pressured. They've had slowing comp sales. We we think that's a function somewhat of what Walmart has been doing with delivery and convenience, and getting that customer who wants to order online. And then you you've also had inventory shrink. So they they have not fully fixed this. You still have a lot of product that's locked up in stores and that that's keeping a lid on the margin rate at this point. But what we'd like to see is, you know, discretionary is a big piece of this business, almost half of the product base, half of the sales base leans more discretionary for target. And and that's where we haven't seen the recovery just yet. Apparel, home decor, electronics. So if if you start to see a shift there, know that that'll definitely help the target profit recovery story because we look at this today with all the tariffs flying around and about 50% of their product sourced overseas. We actually see some downside risk to near-term numbers for target.
