Maybe Wal-Mart is retrenching in certain foreign markets, but expanding in others. Of course! The retailer should go to international markets where is has a significant investment and has done the research that shows it is being popular and profitable, and exit international markets where the customers have not shown up (regardless of fault) and move on.

My guess is that China is a huge potential market for Wal-Mart in the near future, as the global retailer has made many moves in China recently. It's almost officially endorsed the forming of employee unions in Chinese stores and even opened a branch of the Communist Party. Always red prices, always.

Wal-Mart, though, has said it has significant assets and investments in Japan, and it is committed to that market through thick and thin. Although Wal-Mart had a six-month sales total of $4 billion in its Japanese Seiyu division (down 2.9% from the year earlier), it now looks to be in prime bidding position for even more Japanese business. Daiei, Inc. may be having up to 44.6% of itself sold by the Marubeni Corp. trading house in Japan -- to Wal-Mart. Marubeni Corp. looks anxious to get rid of its 44.6% stake in Japanese company Daiei, Inc.

If Wal-Mart lobbies for and wins that much control over Daiei, then that would almost certify that Wal-Mart has a long-term and wholly significant interest in feeding the Japanese marketplace for years (or decades) to come. Daiei has quite a bit of debt and needs to have its stores re-structured and re-modeled according to the source story, but based on Wal-Mart's commitment to the country, that would be a part of the deal it would face head-on.