Wal-Mart cuts forecast
Wal-Mart lowered its annual sales forecast today. They have previously guided towards 4% growth but now see "relatively flat" global sales.
Executives are playing the currency card constantly at the moment and it's tough to distinguish how much of it is real, and how much is spin for poor management.
The dollar certainly hurts international profits but so much of it is hedged, especially at a gigantic company like Wal-Mart.
It also doesn't account for cheaper import costs and Wal-Mart is notorious for squeezing suppliers.
In the US, same store sales rose 0.6%, which doesn't even match the rate of inflation so that's a pretty good signal that they're losing out to Amazon or that consumers are looking elsewhere. So far the market agrees with WMT down about 5% in the pre-market.
