Episode summary
Walmart Slides After Slowest US Sales Growth in Six Years | Bloomberg Intelligence
Bloomberg Intelligence
· · 25 min · Hosts: Paul Sweeney, Scarlet Fu · Guests: Redd Brown, Christopher Ciolino, Mandeep Singh, Adam Minter
Summary
Walmart’s shares fell sharply after the company posted its slowest U.S. sales growth in six years and missed even cautious sales expectations. The guest said the reaction centered on weaker same-store sales, lower spending per trip, and softer foot traffic, even though Walmart raised full-year guidance and kept leaning on price cuts, including reductions on 11,000 items, to protect market share. The discussion framed Walmart as both a company-specific story and a read on the consumer, with food inflation, interest rates, and other outside pressures still weighing on demand.
Deere’s results pointed in the opposite direction: better-than-expected sales and margins, plus stronger early-order programs, suggested the farm equipment cycle may be nearing a bottom. The guest said North American demand remains soft but stable, while Europe and South America are still more challenged.
The conversation also focused on Meta’s heavy AI spending and the lack of clear monetization, with the argument that renting Microsoft Azure capacity and eventually offering more externally usable AI products could become necessary. Later, the episode shifted to sports ownership, where the sale of the Lakers linked a broader selloff in team assets to leverage, liquidity pressure, and the rise of institutional-style owners.
Key takeaways
- Walmart’s U.S. same-store sales growth of 2.6% was framed as a rare miss that may signal both company execution issues and a weaker consumer.
- The guest said Walmart cut prices on 11,000 items, reinforcing a strategy of defending traffic and market share even at the expense of near-term sales.
- Deere’s early-order programs rose mid-single digits, a bullish sign that the agricultural equipment cycle may have put in a bottom.
- Meta’s AI capex is still being judged by monetization, and the guest argued that internal use alone will not satisfy investors.
- The Lakers sale was presented as evidence that sports teams are increasingly treated like liquid financial assets by institutional owners.
Notable quotes
“they cut prices on 11,000 items. That's almost double what they they usually do at this time of the year”
“So, their early order programs were up mid-single digits, which was much better than we were expecting”
“the purpose of using Microsoft Cloud could be just to benchmark against OpenAI”
“You need to have an external customer-facing element, and that's what they need to show”
How the episode opens
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Walmart, I mean, man, the stock's down 9.2%. That's the biggest decline since like May of 2022. I mean, this is a big day for Walmart. — Walmart stock does not move up or down by that kind of by that kind of size. I mean, it just doesn't. It's it's a blue chip stock. I mean, it moves up up or down half of 1% on most days.
825 billion dollars of market cap, so some real money's being traded here today. Uh Red Brown joins us here. He's a consumer reporter for Bloomberg News joining us live here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Red, what happened with Walmart and the results? Why is the street so down and out on this name today?
Yeah, I mean, the the size of the move also kind of took me it made me pause as well cuz it is um it's extreme especially for I mean, for Walmart of all people. So, I think the reaction really is coming from this top line miss. So, Walmart's US source the same source sales um missed even the sort of most pessimistic outlook for among analysts.
So, I think that's probably kind of um leading to some of the move that we're seeing. A big piece of the company is calling out is is lower drug pricing was kind of a factor in that, but even when you strip that out um sales only grew 3.4% which still would have been a slight miss which is still kind of a a rare happening for for Walmart.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- walmart earnings
- deere orders
- ai cloud spending
- meta lawsuit
- sports ownership investing
Companies and tickers mentioned
- WMT
- DE
- META
- MSFT
- Walmart Inc.
- Deere & Co.
- Meta Platforms Inc.
- Microsoft Corporation
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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