Walmart has always made a profit. Good times or bad. I shop Walmart almost every day. The parking lot is full even on Monday at 9 AM. Walmart employs more people in every city than any other business yet it gets a bad rap constantly. I have two friends at walmart with excellent insurance plans. I would keep my stock in Walmart if I had it.

As to the previous comment of Walmart geting a bad rap:
Walmart stated that they hired more than 22,000 people last year and will hire more than 30,000 this year. I was one of last years hires. I was hired for a remodel and told afterwards that I was hired as a perm employee. One week before Christmas I and other employees that were kept after the remodel were told sale were down and we were being let go after Christmas. when we questioned being perm employees, we were told that our status was not changed, so out the door we went. Out of the 22,000 people hired last year, I would love to know how many are still employed there. If it was more than 2000 I would be shocked. Walmart doesn't tell you that out of all those hired, many are temp ,seasonal or remodel help that will be let go one the Allmighty Smiley Face has gotten all they need from said person. Walmart is a crap employer as is the poster child for corporate greed.

Walmart is a cesspool of everything that makes up America. I make enough money to shop anywhere I'd like and just for old times sake I go into a Walmart once or twice a year to see the downhill slide the country has taken due to walmarts taking over of small town America. Inside every walmart you'll find, the poorest of the poor, the illegal aliens, the obese, uneducated people...and these are all the employees of walmart! It's enough to make anyone want to shop anywhere else but Walmart!

wow atleast some of those fat uneducated poor people are working instead of sitting at home collecting money off of welfare and the government

I wouldn't count on Wal-mart losing to much of their business when the economy picks up. Their up-tick in business is coming from food, not clothes and stuff. You wouldn't believe the prices compared to places like Food-Lion or Bi-Lo. I'm saving about 65 to 70 dollars a month on the exact same food. You'd have to be crazy to walk away from savings like that. I don't see how Food Lion can get away with marking their stuff up that high. I was furious when I compared prices. Never again.

you might want to proof-read your posts before posting or publishing. re-read your post and i'm sure you'll figure it out.

nothing irks me more than to read things by people getting paid to write things that get published but not proofed.

I agree that onces things pick up again many of the people who traded down to Walmart will go back to shopping at the stores they had previously, but what about their regular customers that have cut back from what they were spending there. It seems to me that there are far more of them and once things pick up they too will have more income to spend, and they will most likely be spending it there.

The problem with Walmart is the way they do business behind the scenes. I work for a company that wanted to sell some technical equipment to them. Our products are manufactured in the US and were more expensive than the competitors products. Walmart liked our products better but was unwilling to pay the extra price. So they offered to introduce us a company in China that could manufacture our product much cheaper than we do in the US. No thanks...that was the end of our dealings with Walmart. They will rape, pillage and plunder American companies to get the lowest possible price.

So everyone that is shopping at Walmart think long and hard about what you're doing. You are in essence contributing to the downfall of America. Every product you buy at Walmart is another dollar in the pocket of a Chinese manufacturer that has taken the place of an American manufacturer.

As another poster mentioned above, I also only go to Walmart a couple times a year to see how bad things are. The people at Walmart definitely are the bottom of the barrel and they don't even realize they are only hurting themselves.

When you purchase and item, even at Walmart, look for the Made in USA label. Even if it costs a couple bucks more. Buy American.

dave, you embody all I vow to never become.

xkpdash, I'm not getting paid, just one mans opinion. Obviously the person I would expect to critique my post is someone who doesn't capitalize the first letter of each sentence.

Posts from Walmart bashers and Apple fans are always the worst. So passionate they can't even present a logical point.

Walmart is a great company the reason when u r hired in have a 90 day grace period is too see if u r a good worker rest assured if u r let go u had no potentoial as a walmart employess walmart has good insurances benefits and treat folks with respect diginity all they expect is work for ur pay i worked with them 5 years i no walmart runs no store out of business folks there selves choose too shop where ever walmart is great oneida 583 oneida tennesseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

we are were not fat uneducated poorest of the poor people at walmart we are a team with smiles for the public and a helping hand

"...but what a woman says to a passionate lover ought to be scribbled on wind, on running water."

That's from Charles Martin's translation of the Catullus poem. Maybe I am wrong to point it out, but "in the sand and running water" sounded a bit off. What does your editor think?

And that is what drives me the most nuts about this recession. The most evil corporation on earth will get a lift from it.

I could be penniless and still never set foot in a Wal-mart.

If you wish to sell out America, while simultaneously raising the life style of the Chinese please, keep going to Wal-mart. Please, please, please, study up on our cumulative trade deficit...$10 TRILLION dollars...driven primarily by Wal-Mart. Study up on how that affects you and your children and your childrens children. Study up on how Wal-mart kills American companies that won't offshore to China. Study up and understand how Wal-mart is KILLING America!

Open your eyes and see what this company is.

But I know people won't. They will flock to Wal-mart to get "cheap" goods. That actually are costing this country a future.

For you who shop at Wal-mart, d2amn you all to h3ll.

I would not consider the pullback in share price as any investors evaluation of under performance. The reason is relative performance when the recovery starts. Instead of holding this, convert to some other faster recovering one and then when the market slips get back to this share (atleast that will be the aim, in my view).

I would consider any buy back of the share by the company a bit negative. For the reason, that such approach will start eroding the companies cash at a wrong time. Only when the equity holders at the helm of affairs find the price of shares unreasonably low (like example crashed more than 50% with no reason in business reduction or likely future detrimental projections) they should think of buying back the shares.

Actually, Catullus said "What a woman says to an eager lover should be written on the wind and the running water." But close enough.
Wal-Mart is a buy, no matter what. Sure, you might want to try to time it when the stock takes a dip, but you'd best not forget the company has grown into the behemoth it is through both economic feast and famine, with hardly a pause.
#2, you make a great point about how many of those "22,000 hires" were kept on. It's a shame our financial media don't ask the same questions.
#4, thanks for that, man. too bad it's wasted on ignorant people who should take note of such remarks.
And #7 -- I hear you, with some validity. BUT at least Wal-Mart's jobs are being added here in the good ol' USA, not outsourced! (No corporate money-making machine is ever going to be blameless.)

Walmart is a strong buy if you buy at the right price. Look at a 5-year chart, you'll see that, like clockwork, WMT dips to low-40s then makes its way up to near 50, sometimes 60, within a few months.
In fact, it has not been under 40 in a decade, so if you can buy it at 43, you're basically guarenteed a sell at 49 in a few months, a 14% profit. You could have done that 19 times since 2000, generating a minimum 30% annual return.
On the other hand, if you had bought at 40 in 1999 and just held on for 10 years, you'd have only about a 3% average annual return today.

As far as Walmart squeezing US companies - if your company can't compete on price with a Chinese company, your company doesn't deserve to be in business. If any company deserves to be in business, it is because it is more intelligent and resourceful, and more efficient, than its competitors, even Chinese ones. If labor is cheaper there, make up for it with automation, or make your product so far superior that there is no alternative.
But don't sell me the same crap as the next guy for twice the price and expect me to just take the hit cause you think I should feel sorry for you.

People in America need to realize jus what got America in this shape…”cheap” yes so-call cheap items from a foreign land.

quote*Wal-Mart firmly believes in local procurement. We recognize that by purchasing quality products, we can generate more job opportunities, support local manufacturing and boost economic development. Over 95% of the merchandise in our stores in China is sourced locally. We have established partnerships with nearly 20,000 suppliers in China. *end quote!

Now! if there be 182 country’s making items for the world to buy and they have only 5% of the pie in China…duh! This company makes the nice people of China support their currency(yuan) by keeping it in their country working for the people there…. but with the “yuan” going up in value and the US dollar going down…all the foreign items that the American consumer buys thinking it is cheap has went up in price.

People…its all about the currency and to keep a currency strong you got to keep it floating around the country you live in so it can work for you. For the past 12 years all them US dollars are being shipped overseas to a foreign bank and with the American worker not making anything for the foreigner to buy the “we the people” have to turn to the “second” largest employer in America(Uncle Sam) to sell “we the people” debt in order to get all them dollars back!

50 years ago a foreigner would had given their left nut for a US dollar or a Hershey’s chocolate bar and today the same foreigner has got Uncle Sam and the American consumer by both all the while Hershey is moving the chocolate factory to Mexico. Wake up! America and think “MADE IN AMERICA.”