Wal-Mart Q1 earnings preview

With Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) having turned in a dismal April same-store sales figure, will the company's first-quarter period fare any better? We will find out tomorrow when the company reports before the market opens. I'll be liveblogging Wal-Mart's Q1 results conference call right here at BloggingStocks at 8 a.m. EDT.

Wal-Mart earnings per share are expected to come in at about $0.68 for the quarter (analyst average), which is a growth rate of 8.25% from the year-ago quarter. Although same-store sales at Wal-Mart have not been in the "good news" territory for all of 2007, these figures compare to 2006 months and who knows if all that is indicative of Wal-Mart's continuing foray into trying to grow its U.S. business (and international revenue as well), while growing profits at a level that would be respectable and not just bottom-of-the-barrel.

Wal-Mart continues to chug along even with all the negative (and some positive) PR the company receives, but profits are still minuscule based on the levels of revenue the retailing behemoth brings in. Will it get better? Wal-Mart is planning on this as it scales U.S. locations to sell higher-margin goods and more electronics to pad profits more (as oppose to get sales with little to no profit). If it slowly succeeds at this, WMT shareholders may be rejoicing as the company's share price trends upward, since it's been quite moribund for over five years. If the growing backlash towards Wal-Mart continues, the retailer will have some large questions to answer, if it can.