Economy in freefall? 1Q revision shows shrinkage of 2.9%

The bottom line is this: With an ever growing massive poor population and a small top group, it is unsustainable. The rich seem to think they can keep living the high life while the numbers of poor grow. They forget that it is not just themselves that got them rich lol. The poor can no longer afford to fund the luxury lifestyles of the wealthy. The economy is simply getting too far out of balance and will tip over because of it. It doesn't help that the government and media continue to "gloss over" the hard truths going on right now either. If you are doing well right now, you actively are not seeing those that are not. So the more people that fall into poverty, the more people are going to become aware of the actual situation as it truly is. Ironic. Denial only works for so long.

If Walmart was making a big profit, it would be an easier choice to invest in them, but the Motley Fool isn't very excited about them.

Walmart, Target , Dollar General, Family Dollar Stores, Tuesday Morning Corp, Dollar Tree Stores, and Big Lots are all considered discount retailers,

The average gross profit margin of the seven companies in this comparison, according to the 2013 calendar third quarter earnings report, is 32%, and Dollar General, Target, and Walmart are the lowest -- these are the companies we'll focus on.

Surprisingly, Walmart, the company that sells more in one year than the nominal GDP of Hong Kong, had the worst gross margin rate at 24.5%.

(Remember, this is Gross Profit margin, not what you probably mean when you think of profit.)

www.fool.com...

Walmart's net profit margin was 3.4% for the year ending April 30, 2014

Gap, 99 cent stores, and Walgreens were all more profitable or about the same as Walmart since at least back to 2011, and Gap and 99 cent stores always seems to be well ahead of them.

Net profit margin

There are many, many companies with a larger profit than Walmart. If excessive profit is what you can't tolerate, look elsewhere.

a reply to: charles1952
lol you make it sounds like a 3.4% profit margin means theyre barely keeping their doors open
volume is more important than raw profit margins (theres a difference between profit...and profit margins)
they have that profit margin on what kind of sales?
(473 billion dollars.......around 3% of the gdp for the entire united states)
they buy such large quantities they can sell cheaper than most people can otherwise source and because of that do a huge volume of business meaning they can buy even more (meaning cheaper) and sell more and cheaper making it even harder to compete with

so if you are just looking at percentages (which would be foolish) yes walmart is less profitable
if you look at what that percentage equates to in dollars then walmart blows the competition out of the damned water

these kinds of business practices mean forming a competing company is out of the question unless you have millions or in some cases billions of dollars in start up

Yeah, I have been reading about the numbers for a couple of days. I believe two straight qtrs means recession. I don't think the numbers on paper mean anything anymore. What will be a recession for some, will be an all out depression on the ones who have barely been hanging on since 2008. That number is about half the population. I wonder what they are going to do with all of us?

a reply to: MOMof3

Oh Oh!! *waves hand*

I can answer that!!

They will increase taxation, of course.

a reply to: jjkenobi

Stop voting for politicians whose economic policies don't work. It's probably too late already, but it's something we can all do.

The politcal party that gets in within the USA is the one that has the most money, that is a fact. Stop votinf for any of them you are wasting your time..

a reply to: purplemer

While you are generally right (and shame on voters for being so stupid) that is not totally correct. Every election, if you look, there will be some fat cat who overspent his opponent 5 to 1 and yet still managed to lose the election.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor suffered the most stunning defeat in a generation on Tuesday night at the hands of an underfunded challenger whom he outspent by more than 25-to-1.

Read more: www.businessinsider.com...

Thad Cochran spent a ton of money more than his Tea Party challenger and yet had to rely on democrats voting in the republican primary to barely pinch off a win.