Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) reported a December sales gain of 2.4% this morning, which topped analyst estimates and probably caused some industry pundits wonder if December holiday retail sales were all that bad after all.

Did U.S. consumers tighten their wallets and purses and pursue only the bare bones bargains in December? Wal-Mart's sales growth last month would seem to indicate that. After all, no matter what image the world's largest retailer tries to create, it's still the "Always Low Prices" moniker that customers remember when those money clips and coin purses find themselves bare.

Wal-Mart's 2.4% gain in December was driven by sales of food, prescription drugs and consumer electronics. Naturally, electronics sales in December is to be expected. The 2.4% figure did beat analyst estimated of 1.8% and fell inline with Wal-Mart's rather wide 1% to 3% sales gain projection. Although measurement firm Retail Metrics called holiday sales "listless" outside of Black Friday and the actual week before Christmas, it could be said that Wal-Mart's 15,000 item price reduction before the Thanksgiving holiday may have helped it stave off sales growth weakness during the first three weeks of December.

After all, MasterCard Advisors said that "people waiting for discounts" helped many retailer experience sales sluggishness in December, while consulting firm A.T. Kearney said "Retailers have created a bunch of procrastinators waiting for the markdowns they knew were going to come, and they ended up buying at lower margins." At Wal-Mart, those markdowns were already in place before the competition could respond -- and every day has urgency when it comes to December retail sales.

After reading this article at TIME, I was left wondering if Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) can really come back from what is considered "a brink" and reinvent itself as the retailer of the world. Wal-Mart's already had a second act in a manner of speaking, adding grocery lines and auto centers (and more) to its Supercenters to become the world's largest retailer.

How can the company top that? Well, it doesn't need to top that but the laggard mentality can cause problems when consumer and economic changes happen to core customer bases, and that's what Wal-Mart is facing right now. It's hard to imagine Wal-Mart going anywhere, but then again, the unrealistic expectations of Wall Street means that it must constantly find new life amid the competition and even in its boring stores.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) said today that its June 2007 same-store sales results rose about 2.4% from the year-ago period, which blew past the analyst consensus estimate of 0.8%. Wal-Mart's numbers did not even include its fuel sales at its Supercenter locations, so the retailer had a stellar June, all things considered. What caused the upside surprise?

Gas prices again took a turn for the worse as they climbed up the $3.00/gallon scale during late June amid a tough retail environment in every way. Yet, for a $344 billion retailer, Wal-Mart managed to increase sales to a large degree. For the five weeks ending July 6, its sales were up to $35.81 billion from $32.74 billion a year ago, and even Wal-Mart store sales alone posted a 7.1% rise to $22.94 billion. Wal-Mart explained the large lifts by strong grocery sales, which outpaced almost all categories except electronics. Home and apparel sales, though, remained stagnant as they have been all year.

Wal-Mart specifically noted that flat-panel televisions, video game hardware, MP3 players and computers had "significant" year-over-year sales gains. Is the reinvention of the electronics departments inside all those Wal-Mart stores working? This has been a merchandising area targeted by Wal-Mart in the last few quarters as a way to pump up sales of higher-margin goods, and from the looks of June results, it may be working. Wal-Mart remained bullish on its 2007 fiscal guidance and said it would not lower previous expectations.

Woe is Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT). The world's largest retailer posted its worst monthly sales figures last night for April since the company began keeping those kinds of records 27 years ago in 1980. Is the world coming to an end? Of course not, and there were several seasonal variables that probably helped drag Wal-Mart down to its lowest monthly same-store sales growth figure in almost three decades. However, the company brought some on itself. Maybe.

Wal-Mart's April same-store sales growth was a negative 3.5% (a rather huge loss, mind you), following a rather dreary April for most retailers. With Easter falling six days earlier in 2007 than in 2006, retailers saw the hit from that as shoppers pressed more shopping dollars into March than in April. Combine that with the coldest national April in a decade and there you have it: not a good month for most retailers. Wal-Mart competes the chapter with the single largest same-store loss in nearly three decades. Oh my, the sky may be falling soon!

Fears continue to bubble up in that the housing slump (err, correction) in the U.S. market could be spilling over into consumer spending. That right there will affect retailers rather instantly -- but does that indicate that the U.S. economy is taking a nosedive? It's questionable. Until then, the frown on Wal-Mart's Smiley mascot may be here for at least a while.

The world's largest retailer -- Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) -- said this past weekend that its sales for the month of January rose 2.2% from the prior year based on same-store sales. Same-store sales are considered a key component of retail sales performance and are generally measured monthly -- so that the street doesn't have to wait on quarterly results. That would, you know, be too long of a wait for the "results now" mentality of the market.

Now, with Wal-Mart coming in at under 2% for both December and November in terms of same-store sales results, will the market react to this "leap" in trading today? We'll see -- and Wal-Mart will be setting itself up for a decent but short February I guess. So far today, Wal-Mart is up $0.67, over 1%.

But then again, Wal-Mart did say that it expected January same-store sales results to grow between 1% and 2%, and the company beat that by a semi-decent margin. This Thursday, the retailer will release in-depth January sales details ... but for now, the 2.2% figure will have to suffice.

Are gift cards going to be popular this retail holiday season? You bet -- and assume people are very hard to shop for, the "holiday gift card" will continue to be popular until the end of December this year. In fact, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) is reportedly adding checkout lines in stores to be used exclusively by gift card redeemers.

Wal-Mart Marketing head John Fleming, formerly of Target Corp., said "we expect more use of gift cards, and it's a key part of our marketing message".

The push for more usage of gift cards is getting to be part of the largest fever pitch I've seen in recent years -- if ever. With the retail sales tracking universe always settled/not settled on including the sales of gift cards in holiday sales, whether they are ever redeemed or not, sales are expected to be better than ever this season.

In fact, gift card sales are expected to grow more than six times faster than total holiday sales to a record $24.8 billion this holiday season, the National Retail Federation says. Now that's growth. And retailers just love it when the holiday shopping season extends well into January -- or further.