Walmart Is Losing the Battle With Higher Costs—and Investors

Walmart Inc.’s mixed first quarter results had traders batting around the stock between plus and minus in pre-market trading but after opening higher, less impressed investors are winning out and sending shares down as much as 2.6 percent. Walmart’s year-to-date decline now totals some 14 percent vs the S&P 500 Index’s gain of 2.1 percent and competitor Kroger Co.’s decline of 7.6 percent.

The first quarter print did nothing to change Morgan Stanley analyst Simeon Gutman’s opinion of Walmart or his belief that the "rising cost of doing business will inhibit EBIT dollars/margins," even as comparable-store and online sales continue to grow, he wrote in a note.