There was a lot of negativity in the air this week regarding Walmart. Jefferies & Co. analyst Dan Binder downgraded the company on Tuesday and proceeded to appear on CNBC where he expressed concerns about company specific issues at Walmart regarding turnaround initiatives not gaining traction in the time frame he had hoped for.
Last week Janney Montgomery Scott analyst David Strasser downgraded shares of Target to neutral from buy. He offer a litany of things that could go wrong with the Target story, which were subsequently refuted by someone named Will Ashworth on the website “Investopedia.”
Janney Montgomery Scott analyst David Strasser downgraded shares of Target to neutral from buy on Monday. In doing so he cited some familiar concerns about the challenging competitive environment, rising input costs and anticipated difficulties passing through price increases to cash-strapped shoppers thereby negatively affecting gross margins.
Credit Suisse on Wednesday initiated coverage of General Nutrition Centers, the specialty retailer of supplement and nutritional products and partner with Rite Aid in a store-within-a-store program across more than 1,000 drug store locations.
A lack of visibility into Walmart’s sales performance coupled with concerns about the pace of a U.S. sales recovery is contributing to some apprehension on Wall Street regarding the company’s fourth-quarter performance.