Wal-Mart 2008 results

4q08 sales up only 1.7%, net income down 7.7% and EPS down 6.8%.
2008 sales up 7.2%, net income up 3% and EPS up 6% Sales were strong in 2008 if exclude foreign exchange impact on international sales.

Current price is reasonable, but not that attractive unless it fall another 5-10%.

Econ data: 09 week 3

• US Nov trade balance improve to -$40.4B (better than expect, -$51.0B), prior -56.7B
• US Dec M/M retail sales - 2.7% (worse, -1.2%), prior -2.1%
• US Dec M/M retail sales ex-auto - 3.1% (worse, -1.4%), prior -2.5%
• Core PPI Dec +0.2% (better, 0.1%), prior 0.1%
• Core CPI Dec 0.0% (worse, 0.1%), prior 0.0%
• Weekly Initial claims +524k (worse, +503k), prior 470k
• Industrial production Dec -2.0%, (worse, -1.0%), prior 1.3%

Worse economic data is kind of an expected fact, so I won't be too worry about it at this moment.
Also, ppl concern & become so worry about 2009 USA government will run to a huge deficit year (more than $1T for sure), because they don't understand accounting.

This time the deficit is being used to buy assets instead of spending them.
If T-bill interest rate is only 1% while the government will get a return of at least 5% in return on the preferred shares and bad bonds it purchased.

So u can treat the high deficit as leverage instead of expenses.
But for an non-profit organization financial statement, that's how they always present.
That's the reason why ppl still willing to lent $$ to USA government, because those bonds in certain degree back-up by assets.

Econ data: 09 week 1 & 2

- Dec US unemployment rate rise to 7.2% (worse than expect, 7.0%), prior mth 6.7%
- Dec US job cut 524k (same, cut 525k), prior cut 584k
- 09/01/03 US initial jobless claim down to 467k (better, 545k), prior 491k
- Dec US hourly earnings up 0.3% (better, 0.2%), prior 0.4%
- Dec Canada unemployment rate rise to 6.6% (worse, 6.4%), prior mth 6.3%

To me, the data is slightly better than my expectation, my personally estimate 7.2% unemployment rate and 650k job cut.

Corp info: Wal-Mart Dec 08

Wal Mart Dec sales up 1.7% but lower than expect. It also lower its 4Q earning forecast by around 10%. Regardless, Wal-Mart's business remain and still the strongest among all retailers.

Econ data: week 51 & 52

• US weekly initial claims fall to 492k (better, 575k), prior 586k
• Consumer confidence index fall to 38.0 (worse, 45.5), prior 44.7 Nothing special this week

Typically, stock market will fall on Jan, which will give us another opportunity to buy & hold. Let's see.

Auto industry:

It is still under the cloud, as Toyota warns it will have operating loss in 09; On the other hand, GM & Chrysler received total of $17.4B from US government will give a little relief to the industry, unemployment rate as well as the economy. However, further support is needed. Thanks to oil price fall, at least it won't make the new car sales to get worse. The industry can also defer their project/plan on fuel efficient/bio-energy investigation and development. Of course, to Green party, that is not a good news.

Econ data: 08 week 50

• US cut its target interest rate by 75 bps to 0.25% historical low, after that, US government need to use other method to boost the economy. However, mortgage rate in US did not fall.
• US new weekly jobless claims fall to 554k (better than expect, 575k)
• US Dec Philadelphia Fed index -32.9 (better, -40)
• OPEC agreed to cut oil supply by 2.2M barrels per day, but oil price has dropped below $34.
• China cut interest rate by 27 bps to 2.25% (deposit rate) and 5.31% (mortgage rate)

I think oil price should start rebound, but given that the cost of oil production is fixed, so unless it rebound above US50/bbl in short period of time, oil stock's rebound will not be huge. (Technical speaking, the rebound has already completed).
But it is time to consider buying oil companies for long term.
Out of all oil companies, buy those with and with larger refinery business will be much safer.

Corp info: China Mobile Nov 08

Nov 08 new subscribers 6.9M, fall from Oct 07's 7.2M and up from Nov 07 by 5.4%, slow down, and looks like the competition concern is finally kicking off. Stock price already reflect those concerns, so need to look at dec 08 and jan 09's information before i can make further estimation.