NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / October 10, 2018 / While shares of Walmart popped over 2% on news that the company is looking into selling CBD products in Canada, shares of Kroger Co. were in the red as an analyst from Deutsche Bank downgraded the stock and slashed his price target.
RDI Initiates Coverage on:
Walmart Inc.
https://www.rdinvesting.com/report/?ticker=WMT
The Kroger Co.
https://www.rdinvesting.com/report/?ticker=KR
Walmart Inc. shares closed up 2.52% yesterday on nearly 11.6 million shares traded. Wall Street was cheering as they learned that a Walmart spokesperson told Reuters that the company’s Canadian division has done “preliminary fact-finding” on cannabis-derived products. “As we would for any new industry, Walmart Canada has done some preliminary fact-finding on this issue,” said spokeswoman Diane Medeiros. She did however add, “But we do not have plans to carry CBD products at this time.” Canada is gearing up to legalize recreational marijuana on October 17th. "Health and wellness consumers are beginning to find value and use cases from CBD-based oil extracts, tinctures, topicals and capsules to improve everyday life," remarked Vivien Azer, an analyst at the investment bank Cowen. We expect to see CBD used as a functional ingredient in non-alcoholic beverages," she added.
Access RDI’s Walmart Inc. Research Report at:
https://www.rdinvesting.com/report/?ticker=WMT
The Kroger Co. shares were down nearly 5% on Tuesday on nearly 15 million shares traded. The stock saw a sell off after analyst at Deutsche Bank, Paul Trussell, downgraded the stock from “hold” to “sell.” He also cut his 12-month price target on the shares to $24. According to the analyst, Kroger needs to be more aggressive and invest more rapidly in e-commerce initiatives to better compete with Walmart and Amazon. He wrote, "In a period of rapid change in the grocery sector, it will likely be quite challenging to grow profits while playing from a position of weakness." He also added, "We compare (Walmart) – a winner in the space, in our view – who is finally poised to grow U.S. EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) for the first time in over four years versus (Kroger’s) current goal to add $400 million to EBIT over the next two years despite being at more nascent stages of investment." The analyst believes Kroger's costs will go up as it invests in e-commerce and the earnings could as a result suffer.
Access RDI’s The Kroger Co. Research Report at:
https://www.rdinvesting.com/report/?ticker=KR
Our Actionable Research on Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) can be downloaded free of charge at Research Driven Investing.
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